Hyssop House: Enjoy a healing getaway at this private beach house in Batangas
With the start of the ‘ber months, family reunions and clan gatherings are sure to resume once again. For many families, this coming Christmas season will be the first time they can celebrate all together since the pandemic hit.
If you’re looking for a peaceful vacation house to make family memories and make up for the lost summers, here’s one Airbnb not so far from Manila.
Hyssop House is a beach property in Batangas, roughly a 3-hour drive from Manila, where guests can enjoy the simple joys of freshly caught seafood, afternoon swims and sunset watching sessions.
The three-bedroom property ideal for a maximum of 10 guests is a private beach house in a local neighborhood, where guests can enjoy their privacy in comfort. The cozy beach house is located mere minutes away from Ligtasin Cove Beach.
Joey and Maan Oreta, the proprietors of Hyssop House told PhilSTAR L!fe that the Airbnb was refurbished from an old ancestral house. The property, which they took ownership of 15 years ago as a personal family beach house, officially opened their doors to guests just last February 2022.
“This Batangas property has been with our family for decades. It was first bought by my mother as her summer home in the 1980s and she was the one who planted all the towering trees here in the property,” they shared.
While the couple didn't initially plan to transform it into an Airbnb rental, they felt the need to share the escape with friends and like-minded guests when the pandemic hit.
Hyssop House gets its name from an ancient healing plant in the Bible, and is the home they went to for “healing and rejuvenation, especially during the lockdowns.”
“The house is set-up around activities that we love doing as a family with our kids, and therefore needed to be an open, hardworking, free-flowing space that blended indoors and outdoors living seamlessly: swimming poolside, taking cool outdoor showers and pumping up the poso, doing barbecues, gathering around the firepit for some smores or hotdogs, eating outdoors and basically just enjoying life au naturel,” the couple said.
Guests can enjoy a light and airy space with glass doors that open up to the garden, take a dip in the cocktail pool, and take refreshing outdoor showers after hitting the beach.
The living room, dining room and kitchen in the minimalist property is well-ventilated, while three lovely bedrooms have air-conditioning. Inside the house there are two full bathrooms with hot water provision for the shower an outdoor shower.
The property also comes with free use of kitchen utensils and equipment (pots and pans, microwave, rice cooker, cooktop, oven, outdoor griller, coffee maker, dinnerware).
According to the proprietors, one of the best things about Ligtasin is the community.
“We always look forward to mornings as the senses buffet is laid out then. The provincial sounds of the rooster signalling the sunrise, the pandesal pot-pot vendor peddling his hot wares on his pedalbike, the fishermen on the shore hauling in and weighing their catch for the day (If you love seafood, the daily catch can be delivered straight to Hyssop House Casa Uno),” they told PhilSTAR L!fe.
Looking for other activities to try during your staycation?
For those not in the mood to sunbathe, there are various watersports, balsas and bangkas for rent around the property. Airbnb owners also offer a Bambike (bamboo biycycle) for those who want to explore the backroads and forest trails. The bike is conveniently available in the house for rent at P500 for the whole duration of guests’s stay (max of 1 week) and comes with another BMX bike free of charge for use when the Bambike is rented.
While there’s only one main living space, known as Casa Uno available at Hyssop House, a new Casa Dos is currently under construction and will open by the first quarter 2023.
“We hope to accommodate a group of about 20 people for this new casa (double the capacity of Casa Uno), so please stay tuned for more news on this in the following months,“ they said.
Travel tips
- Upon entry to Matabungkay or Binubusan (whichever entrance you may use), all visitors will be charged a P25 per head environmental fee.
- Children need to be supervised at all times, especially when around the pool and machine house.
- Hyssop House provides a safe and secure car parking garage, which can accommodate 2 SUV’s at a time.
- Hyssop House Casa Uno also has three other locked bedrooms on the second floor of the house that are private rooms of the owners and NOT included in the rent.
- Internet connection and electricity disruptions may happen, but the property has a generator set on standby. The area has wifi that can be accessed in all rooms and the garden area.
Rates
- Overnight stays at Hyssop House starts at P12,500/night.
- The Airbnb price is good for 10 pax. The property does not allow more than 10 guests even for an extra fee.