The Villamor House

Overview

The Villamor House is a two-storey hardwood ancestral home, geometric and rectangular in plan, its weathered exterior typical of Bohol’s colonial-era domestic construction. The upper floor holds the living quarters, lit and cross-ventilated through wide sliding windows fitted with wooden shutters.

It stands on the street leading to Baclayon Church in Poblacion, built in the late 19th century by Ciriaco Villamor and his wife Agrifina Buhion — one of the oldest houses on the street, per local heritage sources. The ground floor originally served as bodega (storeroom) and garage, with living quarters confined to the upper level, a common arrangement in bahay na bato construction that kept the household clear of flooding and pests below. The house keeps its solid wood window shutters rather than the capiz-shell panes used on some neighboring houses, along with traces of its original green paint; the nipa-thatch roof was replaced after typhoon damage in the 1980s.

The house went up during the same late-Spanish period that produced much of Baclayon’s surviving colonial-era streetscape, when a family prosperous enough to build in hardwood rather than lighter nipa-and-bamboo construction was signalling its standing within the parish community — the street’s cluster of century-old homes reads today as a record of which Baclayon families had accumulated enough wealth, likely through land, trade, or a position tied to the church, to build for permanence. That it survives largely intact, unpainted timber and all, while much of provincial Philippine domestic architecture from the same era has been lost to fire or typhoon damage, is a small measure of how the Villamor descendants have maintained it.

Location

Poblacion, Baclayon, Bohol — approximately 6 km east of Tagbilaran City along the coastal road, on the street leading to Baclayon Church.

Getting There

From Tagbilaran City, take a jeepney or multicab heading east toward Baclayon (approximately 15–20 minutes). The Villamor House is on the street between the main road and Baclayon Church, within the Poblacion heritage cluster.

Practical Info

• Ownership: private family residence (Villamor family descendants), operated as a homestay.
• Visitor access: open to paying overnight guests through the BAHANDI (Baclayon Ancestral Homes Association) homestay program; day-visit/viewing access for non-guests was not confirmed in sources checked.
• Admission/rates: reported at approximately ₱1,200 per night for a double room, with additional-person rates and breakfast included, per a 2012 travel-blog source — rates should be reconfirmed before publishing, as this figure may be outdated.
• Contact (as reported in 2012): landline +63 38 540 9030, mobile +63 920 209 7558 — verify current before publishing.

What to Expect

The house reads as a straightforward bahay na bato: rectangular massing, an unpainted facade worn by decades of sun and salt air, and upper-floor windows sized for cross-ventilation rather than display. The sliding wooden shutters are a common feature of pre-war provincial houses across the Visayas, built for light control and privacy rather than ornament.

The interior holds “a wide array of antiques and other historical artifacts,” per a local heritage account, though no detailed room-by-room inventory is available, and the structure’s condition following the 2013 Bohol earthquake isn’t addressed in the sources checked — guests booking a stay may want to ask the family directly about current condition and what’s on display.

Running the house as a BAHANDI homestay rather than a static museum piece is itself a deliberate choice, and a common one among Bohol’s surviving ancestral homes: opening the upper floor to paying overnight guests generates the income needed to maintain a century-old hardwood structure that would otherwise cost a private family far more to keep standing than it could recover from occasional viewing fees. Breakfast is served as part of the stay, and a night here comes with the kind of proximity to Baclayon’s heritage core — a short walk from the church, the museum, and the arch bridges — that no hotel in Tagbilaran or Panglao can offer.

Notes

• Built late 19th century by Ciriaco Villamor and Agrifina Buhion.
• Part of the BAHANDI (Baclayon Ancestral Homes Association) homestay program, alongside the nearby Malon House.

Further reading: Visit BOHOL: Baclayon: Villamor House, Baclayon Ancestral House: Villamor Ancestral House - UnknownCebu.