Celebrate Life’s Precious Moments in Heritage Elegance

Mansion de Bacolod, popularly known as the Esteban Mansion, is located at Aniceto Lacson Street, the longest and most vital major thoroughfare of Bacolod City, extending all the way to the last City of the Province of Occidental Negros – San Carlos City (163.52 KM). Considered one of the most prominent Bacolod addresses with building No. 111,South Lacson Street as its postal address, it sits on a 2,080.00 square meter prime property. Built in 1950, it is designed with a colonial neo-classical architecture, a trend at the time among the affluent landed families of the province who moved from their ancestral Spanish stone houses to concrete mansions with modern facilities.

Mansion de Bacolod was formerly owned by Don Antonio Montilla Esteban and his wife, Doña Gloria Araneta Esteban both civic leaders and sugar planters with vast land holdings in the province and Bacolod City. Residing with them in the mansion were their four daughters; Amelia, Glorietta, Xenia, and Merle.

Doña Gloria A. Esteban, who founded several charitable institutions, among them the Bacolod Children’s Orphanage and the Bacolod Chapter of Daughters of Mary Immaculate, an international organization, was a former Miss Occidental Negros, and a Pope Pius VI -Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Awardee. She was the first woman to serve as Bacolod City councilor from 1953 to 1955, then vice mayor in 1955, and two years later, as vice-governor of Occidental Negros, the first to be elected to this office.

The Esteban couple was a personal friend and supporter of then Vice President Diosdado P. Macapagal. In 1960 they purposely built a guest house in the property (left side) where then Vice President Macapagal was the first guest and where he stayed during the 1961 presidential campaign where he won by landslide in the province, as the ninth President of the Republic of the Philippines. He served from December of 1961 to 1965.

The Esteban couple hosted lavish parties in the Mansion for Bacolod prominent families as well as for, national personalities and political figures including then

Senate President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr., who later became the tenth president of the Republic of the Philippines in 1965. Don Antonio, a Grand Knight of the Knight of Columbus preceded his wife and when she passed away in 2009, the Mansion was placed by the heirs under the care of the Diocese of Bacolod. The Mansion served as the center of the St. Pope John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences - a Roman Catholic pontifical institute of theological studies on marriage and family with affiliated campuses around the world. The Mansion was acquired on December 19, 2022 by a family from the heirs of Don Antonio and Doña Gloria Esteban through an intermediary Aufred Paul A. Sa-onoy.

Restored in 2024 to its original features, the house is now open to the public as Mansion de Bacolod, refurbished as an event and dining venue. The event -function rooms are appropriately named after the festivals of the Province of Occidental Negros – in the ground floor; MassKara (Bacolod City), Bailes De Luces (Municipality of La Castellana), Pasalamat (La Carlota City), Pinta Flores (San Carlos City) and the dine in restaurant on the second floor; Sinulog (Kabankalan City) and Dinagsa (Cadiz City). The main hall is the Comedor’, while the garden annex La Guerta’ and the small rooms Cuartito’.