Falling in Love with Gupondoro

The first time Oky brought me to this house was a couple months after we started dating. I had gotten the brief from his friends: he designed an amazing house-office for himself. But nothing could have prepared me for experiencing Gupon (as was the nickname for the house) for the first time. Coming from the side, it stood alone on the top of the hill. The entrance felt like a mysterious passageway in which one merged smoothly from nature and the outdoors into a cozy wooden cabin. I called it a treehouse for the longest of time. 

The stairs of the cabin revealed nothing of what the living room and loft was like. It was a clear night, and the glass walls allowed the sexy twinkles of city lights to seduce me. This was the second breathless moment, after that magical passageway. Later on there would be other moments in which Gupon stole my heart. As if it was a person you could get to know from various different angles. On that night though, I simply thought I could definitely live here. It just needed a piano…

Written for “Sketches and Regrets“, a permanent exhibition at Villa Gupondoro. The exhibition is accompanied with the book under the same title. To read more about the time I lived in Gupondoro before Oky died, visit this post: Did You Plant Those Trees.