She stands outside my hotel room, her eyes glinting like polished obsidian, her lips drawn into a dry smile, her hair gathered into a shock of wiry strands, and her delicate fingers poised upon the strings of her mandolin, ready to pluck a tune. Her tentative gaze meets mine, her comely face bordered by an ornate gilded frame. She is “La Mandolinera”, the mandolin player, a painting by none other than Juan Luna, the great Filipino master after whom the hotel in which I and the lady with the mandolin were staying was verily named. I later learned that the painting, circulated in 1883, was valued at P148 million, according to the National Commission on Culture and Arts, and that the lady in the painting was a gypsy from Naples, Italy, believed to be one of Juan Luna’s mistresses.

Elsewhere throughout the finely adorned hall just outside my room, many other art pieces were on display, works by other Filipino artistic greats, such as Fernando Amorsolo, Napoleon Abueva, Vicente Manansala, Arturo Luz, Federico Alcuaz, Mauro Malang Santos, Guillermo Tolentino and Benedicto Cabrera. To stand in the midst of all those priceless works of art was nothing short of mindblowing.

THE PHILIPPINE’S PREMIERE MUSEUM HOTEL
Being certified by tourism authorities as the first and only museum hotel in the Philippines, it seems only fitting that Hotel Luna should be situated within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Vigan, where the town center, with its beautifully preserved Spanish colonial houses and its calesas still plying Calle Crisologo, is in itself a living museum and showcase of Philippine patrimony.

Like many of the other business establishments in the heritage quarters of Vigan City, Hotel Luna was previously an ancestral house. The original structure was built in 1882 by the affluent Don Jose Florentino as a wedding gift to his daughter, Carmen, who married Don Honorato Romero Encarnacion in 1883. The house was then passed on through generations until it was eventually sold to Benigno Que, sometime before 1990. Then in 2013, the property was acquired by the Stern Real Estate Development Corp., later known as ArtStream Hospitality Management Group, Inc. (AHMGI), which rebuilt, extended and repurposed the old ancestral house, and opened it on Feb. 8, 2014 as the luxury museum hotel that stands today.

Amidst new structural extensions and modern amenities that have been incorporated, Hotel Luna has preserved much of the historical integrity and colonial Antillean atmosphere of the original Doña Carmen Florentino ancestral house, with obvious traces of the traditional bahay-na-bato design glaring in renewed refinement. The zaguan (the ground floor wherein the horse carriages and carrozas where once accommodated) has been partitioned into the main lobby and reception area, and the hotel’s two dining outlets, the Comedor and the Chula Saloon Bar. Along the lobby passage way lighted by chandeliers purportedly made up of Swarovski crystals, guests are already ushered by a truly impressive collection of artworks: a somber painting of shawled infants by Araceli Dans, an exquisite metal sculpture of two balancing dancers by Daniel Dela Cruz, a striking canvas of three women by Ben Cabrera, all among several other fine pieces that were on glorious display.

Up the escalera mayor (the grand staircase), one comes upon the caida (the second floor foyer), where, flying high above the stair banister, a steel wire running from one wall to its facing wall held up the metal figures of two women, one walking the tightrope while she holds by the hand of her companion, dangling underneath her. It was a piece by Daniel Dela Cruz entitled “To Walk His Path”, an installation that has fascinated me the most. Connected to the caida was the sala mayor (the grand living room), which now stands as the main museum hall, where the charming mandolin player and many of the hotel’s collection of priceless art pieces are exhibited.