Audience impact

Debbie Palao—one of Elle magazine’s most loved furniture designers—rests under the merits of her house: a-slope a hill, surrounded with trees, mellow serenades, beautiful at night, protected by two great saints at the foyer. “I do not like walls,” she begins, “because we’re all meant to communicate with each other.”

“My husband and I seldom go out. We usually host dinner for three couples because I am not comfortable with holding fiesta-like dinners,” Debbie continues, referring to the type of entertainment she prefers. And most often, she adds, she prefers leading her guests to an alfresco bailiwick that provides a view of a thick pocket forest.

The eye can already travel at the foyer. The double-swing door is already a conversational piece, an item older than the house’s blueprints. “I can’t remember clearly, but I guess I bought that from an antique shop on Mango Avenue. Even if I didn’t know where to put it—and it’s a little expensive—I still took it with me until I could figure out where to use it. So when we built this house, it was a perfect fit.”

Built by architect/contractor Danny Tan (husband of The Freeman Lifestyle’s executive editor), the structure goes along the slope of the hill in Banilad. From the main entrance, a wooden staircase leads down to the living room. You’d take a spiral staircase in going to the couple’s reading room.

Debbie decorated the house by drawing out inspirations from intricate ethnic embroidery. Her living room, for one, can already narrate a story of where she has been traveling: India, Italy, Germany, Africa (“I love Africa”), so vast that she can already conduct her own geography class or host a travel show.

“You might consider my aesthetics to be ethnic, but other countries would see it as innovation,” she says. “Well, ethnic plus modernity.”

A lot of creative devotion has been dedicated to the direction of lights all over the place. An avid fan of lights and shadows, she distributes lampshades, which she also designed, strategically in lieu of direct illumination. She beams: “Lighting sets the mood, especially when it’s dim and you’re accompanied with a beautiful view outside.” (FREEMAN)