The Mansion Over the Hilltop
by Oliver Carlos
My Mom is a Los Banos resident for more than 65 years now. As a historian, I find it fun having conversations with her about how our town looked like when she was a little girl. One new knowledge I got from those conversations is the story of the mansion over the Forestry hilltop.
The Forestry campus of UPLB sits on a flat portion of Mt. Makiling’s foothills. Its elevation is around100 meters above the lower campus. It is accessible by driving up the Forestry road which ascends steeply from the Graduate School to the Infirmary. From there, the road is almost flat. That flat road runs for about a kilometer towards the main Forestry campus.
At the top of the ascending road is the modern Infirmary building. It’s a small hospital that caters mainly to the UPLB constituents. I was born in that building when it was newly constructed in 1972. But before it was constructed, my Mom said that there stood a mansion on that very same spot.
The mansion over the hilltop was already existing even before World War 2. It was the house of an American professor. My Mom couldn’t remember the exact name of the professor, but she’s sure that the resident of the large house had such identity. During the early years of UPLB, there were many American professors teaching in both the Agriculture and Forestry campuses. During the War, these foreigners must have been interned in the prison camp at the Baker grounds by the invading Japanese army.
After the war, my Mom said that the mansion wasn’t inhabited anymore. It became an abandoned house. It was mainly made of wood, and slowly the house decayed. It was a head-turner though to everyone who passed by.
Mom was a little girl in the 1950s and they lived in the rubber plantation in the Forestry campus. There were very few jeepneys during that time, so the residents of Forestry were used to walking up and down the university’s streets. She said that she and her siblings would have frequent walks going down the Forestry road. When they would be in front of the old abandoned mansion, they would always scamper downhill because they said that the house was quite spooky. For little kids, it’s very easy for them to imagine some ghosts lurking inside that structure.
Two decades passed, and then the university decided to demolish the mansion and build a modern building in its place. Today, a 2-storey concrete hospital can be found there on that hilltop. The mansion is now a forgotten story.
The Bible also talked about mansions, but these are mansions that do not rot, they last for eternity. Jesus described them in John 14:2–3 (NKJV):
“In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
Jesus promised his disciples, and everyone who would put their trust in him, that he will bring them to these mansions when he returns. Further studies on the Book of Revelation, which John also wrote, described our eternal dwelling as having streets of gold. It’s fantastic to imagine the eternal life we are all longing for. It inspires us to keep our hopes aflame on Jesus’ promise in the verse above. One day, we will enjoy the “better place” Jesus had prepared for us. That’s a great reason to rejoice today!
