Temple of Leah: Undying Love, With Room for Her Things

Place

Temple of Leah

Visiting information ↓

Philippines Art & Monuments

Visited: May 24, 2023
Published: October 25, 2026

The front of the Temple of Leah: a columned portico under a pediment crowded with white sculpted figures, golden lions on either side of the steps, and the gold statue of Leah visible through the entrance, with a forested hill behind — Columns, a pediment, two golden lions and, at the back, Leah.

“I cut the top of a mountain where it now gracefully rises.”

The sentence is on a wall inside the Temple of Leah, in Busay, up in the hills of Cebu City, and it is written in the first person by the man who had the temple built. Teodorico Adarna built it in memory of his wife, Leah. They had been married for fifty-three years.

The same inscription calls the temple “a symbol of undying love for and ceaseless devotion to” her. Its design, he writes, was inspired by the Parthenon, and he hopes it will keep its beauty for the next three thousand years.

Outside, the classical look has been applied generously. There are columns, a pediment crowded with white figures, and golden lions on either side of the steps. In front stands a fountain with winged horses around its base. On top of it, three women lean together with their arms around each other. They look very much like James Pradier’s Three Graces in the Louvre. The Louvre’s are in Paris. These have a mountaintop, or what is left of one.

A white fountain in front of the temple, with three winged horses spouting water around its base and three standing women on top, before the columned facade and its golden lions — The fountain in front of the temple, and the three women at the top of it.

Close view of the three white statues on top of the fountain, leaning together with their arms around each other, one holding a wreath, against the sky and the temple’s pediment — The fountain in front of the temple, and the three women at the top of it.

Along the sides, columns run in long rows over a floor laid with black and white stars.

A long colonnade of fluted columns beside a stone wall, over a polished floor patterned with black, white and brown stars — A colonnade, and a floor of stars.

The Matron Queen

Visitors can go into one room: the hall at the centre. A wide staircase climbs between golden angels blowing trumpets towards a stained-glass window, and in front of the window, in gold, wearing a crown, sits Leah.

The main hall: a staircase between curving red handrails and golden angels blowing trumpets, leading up to the gold statue of Leah seated on a pedestal before a stained-glass window, with a chandelier above and an inscription panel on the wall at the left — The hall. The inscription is on the wall at the left.

The pedestal explains the crown. Leah was chosen Matron Queen of her alma mater, the University of Southern Philippines, and the statue, nine feet of bronze, portrays her “composure and regal bearing when she was crowned.” “May the beholder,” it adds, “discern her innate beauty, poise and genteelness.” At nine feet, the beholder has no trouble finding her.

She is not a goddess or a saint. She is a woman on the day she was crowned.

Close view of the gold statue of Leah wearing a crown and a sash, seated in an ornate chair before a stained-glass window, with a golden angel blowing a long trumpet in the blurred foreground — Crown, sash, folded hands, and a fanfare from the foreground.

The inscription on the wall has more to say. After the fifty-three years, it turns to what it calls her lifetime passion. Leah’s collections of antiques, books, special objects and memorabilia from their travels, it says, “are enshrined and well-preserved inside the 24 chambers of this temple.”

Visitors get one room. Her things get twenty-four.

Through the windows

The chambers are not open to visitors; you see them through the glass. In one, tall green vases painted with mountains stood shoulder to shoulder. Behind them were a white and gold eagle with its wings raised, as though someone had come too close, a clock on a tall stand, a camel, and shelves set into the wall, most compartments holding a small figurine.

Seen through a window: tall green vases painted with landscapes, a white and gold eagle with raised wings, a clock on a tall stand and a camel figure, in front of shelves set into a wall holding small figurines — Through the window: vases, an eagle, a clock, and a wall of figurines.

Her granddaughter’s version

Leah’s granddaughter, the actress Ellen Adarna, grew up with her, and in interviews she has added what the inscription leaves out.

Her grandmother, she says, did not like to part with things. Her grandfather had land in Busay, so he decided to build somewhere to keep them. It was never meant to be a tourist attraction. But the view was good and the building caught people’s eye, and they started coming up the hill to see it. The family turned it into a business, with an admission fee. I paid it.

A statue of a woman in a draped robe holding a horn of grapes over her head with a globe lamp on top, between two potted plants, with green hills and distant lowlands beyond — On lamp duty, with the hills behind her.

The view is good. I stopped here on the way down from Sirao Garden, higher up in the same hills.

Ellen’s standards for men, she has said, are high, because her grandfather gave her grandmother a temple.

She also remembers what her grandmother used to tell the family: if you sell my things, I will haunt every one of you.

He hoped the temple would last three thousand years.

She had made her own arrangements for the contents.

Comments ↓

Visit this place

Location

Temple of Leah

On a hilltop in Busay, in the hills above central Cebu City, on the Transcentral Highway

Cebu Transcentral Highway, Busay, Cebu City, Cebu, Philippines

View this place on the map Open in Google Maps

Practical Information

Visiting: An admission fee is charged. When I visited in 2023, the main hall with Leah’s statue was the only room visitors could enter; the other rooms could be seen through their windows.

Information last checked: October 25, 2026 (Location checked on Google Maps. Opening hours and admission prices are not stated.)

View all places

Conversation

Comments

Comments are reviewed before appearing. The internet already contains enough unattended surprises.

Loading comments…