LOOK: This Loft House Offers an Amazing Farm-Life Experience in the South | Unique Homes | OG

Hello, OGE! I'm Denison. We're here in Calacabatangas and welcome to Den and Jin's Natural Farm. Come on, let's go in! It has been our dream to create our own farm because we've been heavy into the plant-based lifestyle for the past eight years. It started when my father's heart was attacked and I realized how to be truly healthy. My name is Denison Tan and I'm an organic farmer. It's really hard to trust the sources of our food these days. It all pointed to the fact that we needed to grow our own food. That's why during the pandemic, we decided to find a farm and plant our own food. We've been deep into our farm journey for the past three years and we realized that we need to share the good news of nature and health. That's why we decided to build a small house so that we can feed our families, plant, harvest, and cook together. So that our hearts can return to the simple past, and we can be closer to our food. Part of our stay actually is a two-hour farm tour. The families will be able to plant, will be able to learn about organic farming, will be able to forage and feed the farm animals, and will be able to experience a bit of farm life. So that they can realize that our daily life is not that simple. This is where we come from, this is what we go through. So we should be more mindful, we should celebrate our food more. This area is very agricultural. It's very well protected all around, there are a lot of trees. So it's kind of protected from heavy typhoons. But we chose this area primarily because of the community and because of the warmth of our neighbors. Okay, so the house is designed like an A-frame and we have lots of windows. And the design is inspired by natural light. We want more natural light to come in. So we made a lot of skylight windows. At the same time, at night, on a clear night, you can see the stars. It's so nice to stargaze at night. It has a lot of wood finishes. So our ceiling is made of tiles and our flooring is made of wood tiles. So you can feel more, oh wait, we're inside but it feels like we're still outside. At the same time, we designed our windows to be so big that even when you're inside, you can still see outside. So when you wake up in the morning, the sun will shine on the left. The windows are so big, you can see all the greenery. So you really feel like you're still on a farm but the house is still very comfortable and a bit luxurious. Me and my wife, Jean, we designed it on our own. We just drew it and formalized it to the engineers that we know. So our ceiling is purely tiles. The outside, we finished that using a grooved cement board so that there's a bit of wood feel. At the same time, it doesn't get ruffled. So once you come into our farm property, you will immediately see that it has a lot of garden beds. So 70% of our property is already occupied by garden beds. We plant around 116 varieties of vegetables and fruits. We have around 28 varieties of fruit trees and around eight varieties of native flowering trees. Of course, inside our farm property, we have a nursery, two nursery structures for our seedlings. We have around a 50-square-meter structure to feed worms. We also have around 900 square meters of greenhouse for more sensitive vegetables. And we have an area for native pigs. We also have an area for native chickens and egg layers. And we also have an area for our goats. Then at the upper part of our property, that's where our house will go. In front of the house, we have around 16 garden beds with approximately 30 to 40 varieties of vegetables for the house. Immediately in front of the property are a ton of vegetables for the family to harvest. which is our game room. Then once you go up, with two bedrooms. And once you go up, Our indoor kitchen has a coffee maker, an oven, and a faucet. And for the outdoor kitchen, our outdoor kitchen is large, around 40 square meters, and we have a conventional oven. We also have a microwave, a rice cooker, and a two-stove. We also have a smoker grill for those who like to barbecue. Adjoining a big bathroom, Outside of the garden area, we have a natural pool outside facing the vegetable garden beds. The pool is actually facing Balayan Bay. After Balayan Bay, you'll see a very light shadow of big mountain ranges. That's Mindoro. For the past three years that we have been farming, it's very difficult to get heat here. There's no water available. So we decided that okay, we need a swimming pool, but the chemicals are prohibited because we will use this for watering our organic vegetable garden. So our plants will die. So after one year of research, we met this consultant from Indonesia and we asked for help. So they gave us simple designs and gave us a few mechanics on how their natural pool works. And the rest, we improvised. So we call our pool, Natural Eco-Pool. Why do we call it Eco-Natural? First of all, we only put water once. It goes through its own ecosystem of filtration. What does ecosystem mean? It means that we let the plants and bacteria live so that when the water goes through its filtration, the water will be very clean. Okay, so what happens in our swimming pool is the water goes around. It goes through different rocks. The rocks are where the bacteria live and they eat the so-called dirt or nutrition. So when they eat the nutrition and they go through the roots of the plants, especially when they eat the nutrition, when they go through, when it goes through the swimming pool, the water is very clean. It's even cleaner than our rivers. So the farm property is around one hectare, but the house itself is sitting on a 250-square-meter property with a total floor area of around 230-square-meters. My favorite area in this property is the outdoor deck because you can see Balayan Bay, you can see Mindoro, and you can also see a hint of Batulao on your right, especially when it's sunset. At the same time, you can see all the vegetables that we worked hard for. Second area, or favorite, of course, is our swimming pool area because I always hear that waterfalls, any organic and productive farm, should have a water element. When we first came here, we weren't from Calaca. I am a pure Filipino-Chinese. My wife is from Dikulana. When we came to Patangas, the Batangueño culture is very different. But of course, we can't look at it in a mirrored way. We can't say that we are right or we are better because they are used to it We need to meet halfway and know how to compete with other types of people and culture. So in any farm endeavor, the critical factor is community building. You need the help of your community or your neighbors. And we have been to many houses. Of course, not all of them are ready to plant organically, no one uses chemicals, but we have a request. And their properties, which we converted into organic farming, at the same time, all their surplus, they bring it here and we buy it at higher than market price. We are planning on more projects to help their next generation to continue planting organically to make their properties that were given by their ancestors, productive. If you want to know more about our farm and about our farmstay, you can visit us on Facebook or on Instagram farmstay underscore denandjins That's it!