My husband fell in love with Westgrove Heights the moment a friend brought him here. I was the one who resisted.
For years, he kept saying we should move south. The cooler air, the trees, the space — he saw it right away. I didn't. I had my life in the city, my routines, my comfort zone. Moving to Cavite felt like moving to another country.
So we compromised. We built a house in Westgrove, but I kept my condo in Pasig. For the first two years, I was a weekender. Friday evening drive down, Sunday evening drive back. Westgrove was his home. It was my escape.
Then the pandemic happened
When the lockdowns started, we had no choice. Everyone had to work from home, and "home" suddenly meant Westgrove full-time. No more Sunday evening or Monday morning drives back to the city. No more excuses.
For the first time, I had to actually give this place a chance — not as a weekend retreat, but as real life. And I will be honest: the first few weeks felt strange. Too quiet. Too slow. I kept checking my phone like I was waiting for a reason to leave.
But then something shifted.
The mornings changed everything
I started waking up earlier — not because I had to, but because the light was different here. There is this moment, just before 6 AM, when the sky over the forest shifts from deep gray to a pale gold, and the tree line catches the first light before anything else. No buildings in the way. No city haze. Just sky, forest, and silence.
I would make coffee and sit on the terrace, watching the canopy come alive. Birds I had never noticed before — koels, kingfishers, the occasional hawk circling above the ravine. At dusk, fruit bats glide across the tree tops in long, slow arcs. And the sunsets — I cannot do them justice. The sky turns colors that do not seem real — deep coral, violet, gold — and it happens slowly enough that you actually watch the whole thing instead of just glancing up from your phone.
There is growing research showing that regular exposure to natural environments — forest views, birdsong, green canopy — measurably reduces cortisol levels and improves mental wellbeing. I did not need a study to tell me that. I felt it.
The community surprised me
I am a very private person. In the beginning, I would hide in my room upstairs when my husband had friends over. I was not sure I wanted to know the neighbors.
But Westgrove has a way of pulling you in. The neighbors are warm without being intrusive. People walk around the village in the mornings and evenings. There are groups for everything — yoga, pickleball, wine. Everyone respects each other's privacy, but it is genuinely hard not to make friends here.
We stopped talking about "going back to the city." The city started coming to us — friends driving down for lunch, family staying weekends. And I stopped hiding upstairs.
We built a home we never planned to sell
Here is the part of the story I did not expect to write.
A few lots away from ours, we built another house. Same village, a different forest view — closer — but same elevated position overlooking a protected ravine. We designed it the way we would design our own home — because, honestly, we thought we might keep it.
Maybe rent it out, maybe use it for extended family. We did not cut corners on the finishes because we were building it for ourselves, not for a brochure.
Solid hardwood floors. Marble kitchen island. Cove-lit wood ceilings in every room. An infinity pool that disappears into the tree line. Five en-suite bedrooms so everyone has their own space. A guest suite on the pool level with its own entrance and kitchenette.
Then life did what life does. Our cash got tied up, and we made the difficult decision to let this one go.
So now it is looking for a family. Not just any buyer — the right family. One that will wake up to the same forest we wake up to. One that will wonder, like we did, why they did not move here sooner.
If you have been thinking about it...
I know the objection because I had it myself: "It is too far." I believed that for years. I was the holdout in my own family. And then I actually lived here, and I realized the opposite is true. The city is what is too far — too far from quiet mornings, too far from clean air, too far from the kind of space your family actually needs.
CALAX makes Makati 45 minutes away. Nuvali is 10 minutes. Brent International is 15.
You are not moving to the province — you are moving to a better version of your life that happens to be surrounded by trees.
If this sounds like the home you have been looking for, I would love for you to see it in person. The photos are beautiful, but they cannot capture the morning air or the sound of the forest waking up. That, you have to experience yourself.