Silay's heritage houses span several architectural periods, but the Hofilena house arrived during the 1930s, when Art Deco and Art Nouveau were sweeping the Philippines. The building reflects both influences. Its roof features classic steep and wide eaves, a departure from the galvanized iron sheets that had become standard in Manila, while the broad steps leading to the portico carry the clean horizontal lines of American colonial design. Inside, the dining room, called the comedor, displays Chinese porcelain wares and jars from the Ming dynasty. Some pieces in the collection date back approximately 3,000 years, including an old Israeli oil juglet. The dining area also houses the first wood-printing press in Negros, a machine that Ramon Hofilena, one of Manuel's children, would later demonstrate for visiting guests.

The second floor is where the Hofilena house transcends its domestic origins. Owner-curator Ramon Hofilena spent decades assembling a gallery of over 1,000 art treasures, transforming the family residence into one of the most significant private collections in the Philippines. The walls display paintings and sketches by national artists Juan Luna, Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, Fernando Amorsolo, Ang Kiukok, Vicente Manansala, Hernando R. Ocampo, and BenCab. Until recently, Ramon personally toured visitors through the collection, narrating the provenance of each piece from memory. The intimacy of seeing masterworks in a family home rather than a formal museum creates an encounter that no institutional gallery can replicate.

In 2024, the collection's vulnerability became headline news. An 88-year-old Fernando Amorsolo painting was stolen from the museum. Two suspects smuggled the work out in a bag, and the theft sent shockwaves through the Philippine art world. The National Bureau of Investigation recovered the painting in Quezon City on July 12, 2024, arresting two people on suspicion of attempting to sell it. The painting was returned to the museum on April 25, 2025. The incident underscored an uncomfortable truth about private heritage preservation: the same accessibility that makes the Hofilena house extraordinary also makes it exposed. There are no institutional security systems, no climate-controlled vaults. The collection's guardian was, for decades, a single man who lived among the art he loved.

The house carries histories beyond its art collection. During World War II, when the Hofilena family fled to the mountains, Japanese commanders used the building for military meetings. Decades later, in 1989, the BBC television series Far Eastern Cookery filmed scenes here when it featured Ilonggo delicacies. A Canadian film company later used the house as a setting for a documentary on the Negros sugar industry, shown at the Toronto Film Festival in 2011. The National Historical Commission of the Philippines installed a historical marker on April 6, 1993, confirming what the Hofilena family already knew: their home had become something larger than a residence. The narra-wood four-poster beds remain. The embroidered beddings typical of twentieth-century Filipino households remain. But the house now belongs as much to the public memory of Silay as it does to the family that built it.