Sunday, June 29, 2008 The Amores dream house By Jenara Regis Newman
IT’S a white house plastic surgeon Dr. Alfonso “Boy” and Luz Amores have built for themselves in Lapulapu City (their hometown) after working for years in the United States.
Dr. Amores says they designed it themselves, putting in the features they liked best from the five houses they lived abroad.
The result is a white house that opens to a high-ceilinged living room. Entrance is by the side in order not to obstruct the floor-to-ceiling glass façade. The living room is all-white, including a baby grand piano that speaks of the couple’s love for music, and more especially, of the man of the house who plays the bass guitar at the Saturday jazz nights of Mactan Island Restaurant.
The wood-floor master’s bedroom opens to a large (as in bigger than most rooms in a hotel or hospital) bathroom-cum-dressing room. Dr. Amores designed and made the cabinets, as well as installed the wash basin himself. He will also line one wall of the master’s bedroom with cabinets he will also make, though he knows it would be cheaper, easier and faster to buy them ready-made.
The house is like a blank canvas for the man of the house where he can showcase the many facets of his personality. The walls are perfect backdrop for the colorful blowup of underwater photographs the good doctor, a scuba diver and environmentalist, took himself. These photographs adorn one wall of the living room, plus some more in the office. They are arranged in such a way that they like stained glass on door panels he designed.
Upstairs, there is a game room that overlooks the living room, two bedrooms, and a patio with wrought iron railings the doctor designed. Out in the small front garden, Dr. Amores has chosen to plant mostly greens.
Though the house is lovely and already finished, it will be constantly evolving. It will go on as long as the creative energies of the man of the house will continue to drive him to create more beauty in his and Luz’s retirement home. It’s a drive that makes his brother, also a doctor, think: Dr. Amores should have his hands insured!
