July 31, 2017

Dear Members and Friends:

The Balesin Private Villa

I spent the weekend at Balesin and what a glorious weekend it was, with sunshine and not a drop of rain. Most of my attention was focused on the Balesin Private Villa. As you may know, this private villa consists of eight bedrooms, which in layout and interior design are much like the Balesin villas, but the Balesin Private Villa suites are 15 sqm larger. Except for the elevator which should arrive in late August and be operational by September, the Balesin Private Villa is now complete. At the end of this update, I have attached a few photographs which hopefully will portray the Private Villa’s magnificence and charm. Our inimitable Director of Design, Rico Sison, has again outdone himself – he has created another masterpiece.

The Balesin Private Villa is a slightly smaller version of the Balesin Royal Villa but with a different character altogether. Each of the villas has a full view of the ocean and they all wrap around a 400 sqm swimming pool with a whirlpool massage section closest to the common living area. The main floor of the Private Villa consists of an enormous salon with a stunning indoor greenscape, a library, an office, and a fully equipped kitchen (including a wine cave). The lower ground floor consists of a karaoke room, a bar, and a lounging area with a billiard table. It has beach frontage of 75 meters on one of the best beaches on the Lamon Bay side of the island.

There are four cabañas fronting the beach, much like Rico’s Hideaway. Two of the cabañas will be devoted to dining, one will be devoted to open-air massage, and the other cabaña for lounging.

Each of the villa suites can sleep a total of four people. Thus, a total of 32 guests can be accommodated. The Private Villa will have its own maids’ quarters on the lower ground floor, and its own standby generator, so that full power is always ensured.

I should let you know that about a dozen members, who have viewed the Private Villa, even when it was still under construction, have expressed a desire to buy it. While we are open to the idea of selling to individual families or corporations, we initially intend to rent it out to members and their guests at Php200,000 per night plus VAT (by way of comparison, the Balesin Royal Villa accommodates a total of 56 guests with its 14 royal suites and rents at Php300,000 per night plus VAT).

During the next long weekend (August 19, 20 and 21), we will hold an Open House at the Private Villa and all members and their guests are welcome to attend.

It is interesting that my guests this past weekend, who are major property developers from Thailand, were totally amazed by the Private Villa and they naturally compared it to their best resorts in Phuket, Koh Samui and Hua Hin. They remarked that the most expensive Thai resort villas, which are not even comparable to our Private Villa, cost twice as much, and many of them are not even beachfront properties. In fact, the chairman of one of the companies has expressed a desire to purchase the Private Villa for himself.

Those of you who would like to view this latest jewel of Balesin are advised to make their reservations with Ms. Evans Ramos, our Asst. GM for Operations at Balesin (Tel nbr +63.908.498.8900).

Other than the Balesin Private Villa, our other projects are progressing very well. The melon seeds that my sister-in-law Maribel gave me from Almeria in Spain (she claims they are the best melons in the world) have now fruited and some of the melons are about the size of a football, in just over a month. We now also have a beehive operation, and I think that this has been very instrumental in the success of our melon project.

Our grape orchard is also doing very well and actually, most of the vines have now fruited. I think that in about another two months, we will be able to offer you both melons and grapes from our farms.

We have also decided to double our organic farm operations. I will now have to double the seed packets that I regularly bring in from Italy because the demand is surpassing our ability to supply.

The production of our famous Balesin crab has now increased threefold but we still run short because all of our members who tried them love the unique texture and taste of our hand-fed crabs. Also, on Sunday, I had my first taste of our Balesin farmed apahap (sea bass). It was all of 3.2 kilos and it was delicious!

Finally, I had planned to go to Baguio today (Monday), but the weather for the last few days has been quite unreliable so I have decided to postpone it to this next weekend and I shall give you an update devoted to the Baguio project by next week.