It’s a few days after the Broadway premiere of Here Lies Love, the David Byrne/Fatboy Slim-Poperetta, which chronicles the rise and fall of the Philippines’ infamous first couple, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. And here is Jose Llana – who plays Ferdinand – sitting in the kitchen of the Hamptons, NY weekend home he shares with his husband Erik Rose, a real estate manager.
At home, Philippine-born Mr. Llana, 47, seems like a perfect lamb. But on stage he shines with the best of them. He’s there eight times a week, imposing martial law. There he starred in the 2015 Lincoln Center production The King and I, where he got his way as the ruler of Siam (replacing Ken Watanabe). He also starred in The King and I’s subsequent tours of the United States and Britain.
It’s good to be king. Much of the tidy sum that Mr. Llana made—and saved—during his reign on the streets went toward funding the Hamptons vacation, a clapboard-style home that was designed for, well, you know, with a pool on a landscaped acre of land. half a lot.
“It was amazing to be able to come back after all this time and be like, ‘Okay, what are we going to do with this wad of money that we have now?'” recalls Mr. Llana.
The answer? “Let’s finally put it in a house we’ve been talking about buying for years.”
They thought briefly about Bucks County, Pennsylvania because Mr. Rose’s best friend has a house there. “Ultimately, however, we focused on the Hamptons,” Mr. Llana said.
Jose Llana, 47
Profession: Actor
Time out: “Sometimes I’m in our apartment and I’m like, ‘I only have 24 hours.’ Do I really want to go to the Hamptons?’ But as soon as the jitney turns into the South Fork and I see trees, my shoulders drop.”
But where in the Hamptons? A home close to shops and restaurants would certainly have been handy, but it would also have meant proximity to a teeming humanity — exactly what the couple left their two-bedroom Gramercy Park apartment to flee from. A spot by the water wasn’t a problem either; Mr. Llana and Mr. Rose are not beach people. They are, above all, family people.
So the decision was made to choose a large (nearly 5,000 square feet) six bedroom home in a wooded part of Long Island’s East End. They made an offer for the property in January 2020 and were able to close in April despite the arrival of Covid-19.
“The house has become a wonderful haven for us and for my sister, her husband and their two children who live in Boston but moved in with us for five months,” said Mr. Llana.
In the wake of the pandemic, the home was the site of a celebration for Mr Rose’s father’s 70th birthday, which both families attended. “Six bedrooms means we can have everyone here at the same time,” Mr. Llana said.
Guests may choose among others the aptly named Blue Room, which features an indigo quilt decorated with a map of the Hamptons and a sewn-in heart to denote the Llana Rose home. On the walls: a series of Filipino paintings.
The Pink Room features a pink silk orchid, a pink upholstered bench, a watercolor painting of Mr. Llana’s 98-year-old grandmother, and a five-foot-tall giraffe sculpture made from recycled flip-flops.
“My husband has a slight obsession with giraffes because he’s tall and lanky as a giraffe,” said Mr. Llana, who has a smaller version of the sculpture in his dressing room at the Broadway Theater.
To be clear, the couple isn’t just hosting family members; They also house the belongings of family members. When Mr. Llana’s mother, a veteran cook, downsized her home into an apartment a few years ago, she expressed concern on Facebook that it would mean she was jettisoning her prized cookbook collection
Mr. Llana took action. “I called and told her, ‘Don’t do it. Do not let her go. I’ll pay to store them because one day we might buy a house and store them there.’”
One day is now. Books, from Coconut Kitchen to The Joy of Cooking, sit on shelves in the upstairs alcove library, jostling for space with Mr. Llana’s vast stash of Playbills, one from every show he’s ever seen. On the walls of the library are small, framed posters of the shows he has been in. What’s left — including oversized posters in the lobby and in front of the theater (some were stolen, but whatever) — is hidden in the basement.
The heart of the house is the large room with double room height. The marine palette (blue and white) is a nod to the location. The fabric covering the generous seat and ottoman (tweed denim) is a nod to the owners’ “nothing is too precious here” attitude.
“We want people to be able to sit and not have to worry about staining anything,” Mr. Llana said. “Erik will always go for higher quality, aesthetically beautiful and modern pieces. And I’ll ask, “Well, is it comfortable?” and we end up somewhere in the middle.”
Late last year, the couple sold their apartment on East 23rd Street and moved into a one-bedroom apartment in NoMad. The death of her beloved Boston Terrier Charlie was crucial to the decision. “The second bedroom had become a very expensive doggy daycare room,” Mr. Llana said.
But he and Mr. Rose also had many things that were important to them moved into the house and didn’t take up as much space in town.
“I never would have said we were Hamptons people until we started having more friends around here who I would never have considered Hamptons people either,” Mr. Llana said. “There’s this weird connotation, you know: the people of Hamptons are something negative.”
He continued: “Erik and I both grew up in very middle-class, if not lower-middle-class families. We didn’t have weekend homes; We didn’t have friends who had weekend homes. I was an immigrant. My parents came to the US with nothing.”
He paused, clearly trying to get everything right. “But you know, we’re in our late 40s and both of our careers have really taken off. And I think we’re saying for the first time that we can enjoy a little of the fruits of our labor and create something for our families to enjoy.
“What I’m saying,” he concluded, “is that we worked hard to get here. So maybe we’re Hamptons people after all.”
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