Imagine this scenario - an imposing structure in the middle of a vast sugar cane plantation abandoned for more than 70 years.

As the story goes, this mansion located in Talisay City, Negros Occidental was built in loving memory for Don Mariano Ledesma Lacson's deceased wife Maria Braga after her death in 1911.

The mansion of Italianate architecture was designed to be a monument of their enduring love affair thus giving this structure the mocker "The Taj Mahal of Negros"

During World War II the ancestral manor of Don Mariano was burnt down by the American forces to prevent the Japanese invading army from using this as a garrison base.

Because of the heavy wood used to make this structure, the mansion burned for 3 days, leaving behind the skeletal remains of a once glorious past.