This is the story of how this house was constructed and the background of why it's being sold, which make for a long page, but it's important to potential buyers. Print this page for reference. (If you were brought to this page from a search engine or other link, you should click here to see this section of my website as it was intended, with a long index list of photo pages on the left side of my frameset...if you want to see my entire WebMasterBruce.Org website from the very top, click here...The "House for Sale" module is listed at the top of the Site Index.

For REALLY seriously individuals that live a long ways away, I've produced a CDrom with built in slide show viewer that documents the entire construction of this house from start to finish, mostly taken every Saturday. A little over 600 pics in all. Send me $5 (or 250 pesos if you live in the Philippines) for the CD and postage. Our official address here is

Bruce & Judy Flores Partlow, c/o Suburbia Market
Lot #1, Bajumpandan-Banilad Loop Road
Dumaguete, Negros Oriental, Philippines 6200

You may call us at (001) 63-35--226-1779 IF you have already read this page, are qualified to actually purchase the property, aqnd have specific questions.

Before I start detailing the specifications of this facility, it's Important for any interested party to understand the WHY of the house being sold. It's a very long story, but I'll promise to be brief before I lose you completely <G>
To anyone that has read thru my entire WebMasterBruce.Org website, it is no secret that I suffered a major spinal injury while on active duty as a Chief Deep Sea Diver / Supervisor of Diving and Salvage / US Navy Special Diving Units. BUT- I suffered a major series of spinal injuries while on active duty.

The nature of the spinal injury I suffered meant I could never dive again, and I was asked to leave the Navy under a VA Service-Connected Disability Pension and Medical Care. However, as is the story of my life, the US Navy "LOST" my medical records, and despite 21 years of fighting, I've never received a penny. Claims / Denials / Appeals / more Claims, and on and on and on. NO RECORDS-NO INJURY-NO PENSION. I met my wife Judy (Bureau Chief and Lead Investigative Journalist for the Philippine Govt News Agency) online by accident, one thing lead to another, and she insisted that I move here if I really wanted to marry her. My back had continued to deteriorate over the years, but I cashed out my Spandexwear.com business, sold my big Florida house, and came here with a 20' cargo container and a thousand ideas on projects I could do over here... after all, I had been visiting, working, and teaching here off and on since 1980, and had a pretty good idea what to expect. Althugh quite limited, I was able to walk most of the time, even in great pain. However.. one last monkey wrench in the gears... shortly before our marriage, I was involved in a pedicab accident that finally crushed my L5/S1 lower back disc, and severely damaged the nerves leading to everything from the waist down by 70%. Being unable to fly in a plane or to walk, I had to undergo a titanium spinal fusion cage installation in my spine here in the PI, spent 8 months in bed, and relearned how to walk... (something I was assured would never happen again...) and THEN dedicated myself to building the house I had promised my wife AND myself when we did get married.

This project was hell on me, even with the large doses of morphine I was supported with. On several occasions during construction, I had to send all the workers home for a few days and be admitted to the local hospital for IV Morphine treatment just to support my own body weight. Eventually, my wife and I had to face some hard facts. I'm not the rock I used to be, and have to hire local engineering students to do even basic tasks around our house, just to keep the maintenance up, etc. There was so much more I wanted to do, but facts are facts: Many are the days when I cannot even support my own body weight WITH big morphine and spend days at a time in bed. In 2001, I discovered that President Bush pushed thru a law change that allowed people like me to receive free medical care (in 1996...) On installing the spinal fusion cage here in the Philippines, the 3 "best" surgeons made a terrible mistake, there is no malpractice as we know it in the US here in the Philippines, and lastly- both the US Embassy AND the VA Center in Manila are forbidden by law to provide me with ANY assistance whatsoever unless my injury is Officially Service-Connected... I can't even get my free VA meds sent here from the States. So, in order to get the meds and other operations I need to try and fix the spinal damage done over here, I have to be living on US Soil, someplace close to a VA hospital because I don't drive anymore. I CAN drive if I have to, but it's just not safe for me or anyone else. HENCE.. the big beautiful house I intended to live in for the rest of my life is now on the market.

PRICE: Pricing is somewhat negotiable, depending on what furnishings you what included, stuff like that. But, basically, all I want is my actual construction costs recovered. DEpending on what you what included with the house, we're talking somewhere between $125-$150K US. I am NOT shipping this 20' cargo container back to the US. Thanks to the Dept. of Homeland Security (can you say "oxymoron"???) my wife of 4-1/2 years cannot come back to the States with me for a minimum of 2 years, so I will rent her a small place locally so she can keep doing the job she loves. Therefore, some furnishings will go with her period, and others can go with the house or be sold thru the local website and a big Yard Sale. Under EXTREMELY limited and controlled circumstances, I might consider holding part of the mortgage as a personal note with the majority being paid at sale. JUST prior to the spine-crushing accident, we took out a small mortgage on the property to invest in several of our business plans. So, although it's only a small percentage of the total price, the bank does require a 30 day written notice prior to payoff and transfer. However, the title to the property is in OUR names and is considered "clean" (as they say over here) with no easements, rights-of-way, or any other such nonsense.

I designed this house using my AutoCadd skills and experience for specific purposes. I had to pay a large chunk of Pesos to a local architect to have them made legal, as I don't have a Filipino Architectural License. The Foreman I hired lied and couldn't read English Blueprints, and the 20 workers he brought couldn't speak a word of English. As I looked around that first day, I realized they didn't even have a hammer or a shovel. When I interviewed and hired the foreman he seemed to have all the right answers... like if his men all had their tools, and if he had a welding machine. That first day, I asked him where his welding machine was so that we could at least start work on the custom roofing system, and he just pointed to one of the guys saying "welder." As the stomach acid started to build I just knew it was going to be a long winter... With a real spine and a real workcrew, I could have finished off this place in 90 days. Instead, it took me 9 months.... a lot of drawing pictures so I could get workers to understand what I wanted them to do!

LOT and BUILDING: This is a 2,000 square meter lot with a very gentle slope and no flooding problems. A very slight grade drains even the heaviest of storm water into the adjacent sugarcane fields. The building itself is a total of 350 square meters. It is "L" shaped and was designed to be a combination residential / commercial building, with the commerce in the front and the residence extending towards the rear. It contains: large dry-goods store, Advanced Computer School / Net Cafe, large kitchen, large living room, very large Master Bedroom / Bathroom / walk-in closet area, and large living room (sala). Also, 2 small maid's bedrooms, a small storage room containing the master electrical service panels, large fully equipped workshop with work tables, storage racks, grinders, drill sharpener, new 300 amp welder on dedicated 60-amp breaker wiring circuit, large new cement mixed, huge variety of hand tools and power tools: basically everything you can imagine to build a house. In addition to the computing center, the dry-goods store, fully equipped workshop: outside the house is a Dept. of Agriculture-certified, "vermicast" organic fertilizer operation. VERY little work for a fair return. The President is trying to make this island (out of a total of 7,102) the "Organic Capital of the Philippines. Like with many, many other places, the use of chemicals is becoming more costly and worrisome regarding their residues. The Dept. of Ag. has a program encouraging small folks like us to start these "backyard" fertilizer businesses because 1) it's so easy, 2) they provide KILOGRAMS of special African Nightcrawlers to eat their way thru the compost, and 3) for every one doing this, their is a waiting list of about 20 farmers wanting to buy the bagged, organic fertilizer for their fields. AND- get this- the nightcrawlers double in number every 3 weeks, meaning you can expand the business as you see fit (plenty of space exists here) OR you can sell the surplus worms for 500 pesos/Kg, as opposed to 3 pesos/Kg for the organic fertilizer. Either way, it's a profitable little business that requires little wirks and no advertising- the Dept. of Ag. maintains a waiting list and you just call them as you have product to turn over!

OUTSIDE: The yard has 4 huge mango trees, as I moved the house footprint to keep them from being cut down. There are 2 different types of bananas- 4 ea. Plantain trees and 2 ea large, sweet local varieties that I don't know the name of. Not like the uniform, identical bananas you see in the Stateside store, there are dozens of varieties here. We have done EXTENSIVE landscaping continuously since we first bought the property so all our trees and hedges would get a good headstart. 3-5 foot mango trees we planted of different varieties. Golf-ball sized limes called locally "Calamuncie," tangerines, apples, etc. We also planted over a dozen fast-growing hardwood Mahogany trees that will fetch you a good price when mature in another 10 years. We grow a significant portion of our own food in various garden plots along the outside perimeter fencelines- all kinds of vegetables, hedgerows, and flowers of all types and descriptions,

Before we could even access the property, I had to design and manufacture 2 ea. 25' wide, steel reinforced driveways. The lot actually sits approx. 1 meter vertically below the adjacent roadbed, and neither cars nor delivery trucks could get in here. The next thing I did was bring in a HUGE bucket loader. 1) There were 2 large gnarly dead trees inside the foundation footprint which had to be ripped out, and 2) before being abandoned, this lot used to be a corn field. The entire property was plowed into sharp rows and was a major pain just to walk on. Since the topsoil itself was extremely rich, black, volcanic, valuable dirt, I had the loader scrape the entire property bare of topsoil and strategically dump it in rows along the perimeter fencing for future landscaping.

ACTUAL CONSTRUCTION:

ELECTRICAL: In addition to having separate residential / commercial electrical meters and 110v/220v delivery circuits throughout the entire house (inside and out). Because the Philippine power grid is 220v, we had to order and buy a special electrical transformer and have it mounted by NORECO. Aside from normal lighting inside, the entire property is surrounded by security lighting to keep most of the thieves away. WATER: House is located less than 50 meters from the main water filtration plant in this area. We have excellent pressure AND water is safe to drink- no more buying bottled water. In the photos, you can see the electrical and water lines being run as needed down from the trusses into place. Most people considered this odd, but it is a HUGE benefit: if anything goes wrong in the future, all lines can be accessed immediately WITHOUT having to smash out big section of concrete just to get at a small water leak or electrical connection gone bad....

STRUCTURE: Basically, house is designed and made to US strength standards and not local standards. After leveling and scraping all the topsoil, I poured a deep foundation with a 6" steel reinforced slab approx. 2 feet above ground level. As needed, there are 21 ea., 12"x12" support pillars for the main roofing trusses with large underground reinforced support blocks. All 6" thick concrete blocks were custom made with double the normal amount of cement in them... I can crush local blocks in my hands, but NOT mine. Masons were taught how to do proper masonry work, instead of slapping blocks together haphazardly and then having to apply a layer of plaster to cover up the poor workmanship. Using my methods, that extra coat of plaster wasn't required. Every hole in every concrete block is filled with 10mm rebar and extra-strength concrete mix. Finally, entire house is painted with 3 coats of white enamel paint for long life. All walls and cabinets inside the house are either concrete block or marine-grade plywood for long life, no chance of bug or water damage. Windows are local glass louvered, but set in hardwood framing, covered by unremovable, welded steel bars, AND a layer of aluminum mesh wire to keep the bugs out. Security bars are coated with a rust-proofing agent, a coat of red oxide, and 2 coats of white enamel paint to prevent any future rusting. Lastly, local officials forced me to build a long sloping handicap walkway for entrance to the store, even tho it's never been used.

ROOFING: All custom designed steel trusses were made on site from back-to-back, 5mm thick angle bars imported from Cebu. Same rust-proofing and red oxide paint to prevent future rusting. I designed in the huge extra strength margin because I was here during the Mt. Pinatubo eruption and saw so many buildings squashed flat from the ash loads on the cheap, single, 2mm angle bar trusses used throughout the area. That WON'T happen with this building. Each concrete support pillar has 4, 3/4" "J" bars embedded into the concrete, a 5mm steel plate secured with fasteners, and finally, the truss system is 100% welded to these base plates. All trusses are joined by 3mm "C" channel purlins, 5mm angle bars across the top, and 10mm rebar lengths run on diagonals to keep everything stiff and square. Finally, instead of the normal sheet steel panels used locally, we used a roofing panel called "Galvalume," aluminum and other alloys for more strength and no rusting. Every panel is held with a "Tox" screw every 6 inches across, and every 18" down. As shown during the magnitude 6.2 earthquake located 12 miles from here a few months ago, this is a SOLID, STABLE structure.

Obviously ready to move in, new owners may choose to continue the businesses we've built, or add and/or change to their own ideas. Many people have suggested taking out the computer area and adding a Student Housing section to support the +/- 5,000 students that attend the Engineering College across the field, generating even more income. Possibilities are endless.