Originally built in 1859, the house was purchased in the late 1940s by a prominent Filipino lawyer and dignitary, Marcial Lichauco from a European family who had fled the Japanese occupation in the Philippines.

Prior to World War II, the house was owned by the O'Brien family who fled Manila when Japanese troops invaded the capital.

Because of its location on a main thoroughfare leading out of Manila, the house became a place of refuge for those fleeing the destruction downtown.

The house retains its original materials and architecture, including the molave stairs, the adobe walls, the wooden panels and the machuca tiles.

A row thick, plaster-coated Tuscan columns supports the veranda on the side facing the Pasig River.