The ancestral home of the Negrense revolutionary hero General Juan Araneta, the General Juan Araneta Residence and Landmark Museum is a heritage house declared by the National Historical Commission as a National Historical Landmark.
General Araneta, Tan Juan as he is fondly called then played an important role in the Negros revolution of 1898. The celebration of Cinco de Noviembre in Negros Occidental is attributed to him. As a sugar baron by trade, he used to travel to Europe to buy farm equipment intended for use in his farm. The equipment came in Negros by crate and it is said that such created a suspicion among the Spaniards that he was stocking up crates of gun power. Fast forward, November 5, 1898, he together with his cousin in-law General Aniceto Lacson led thousands of farm workers from Bago to Bacolod City with makeshift cannons and rifles. That intimidated the Spanish Authorities who eventually surrendered to them believing that they were outnumbered and outgunned. The bluff succeeded and the rest was history.
In 1906, eight years after the Negros Revolution he assumed ownership of the mansion given by his aunt Natividad Sitchon Palacios. He spent the rest of his life in the house until his death in 1924.
The house is a bahay na bato architecture with the ground floor made from coral stones and the second floor made from hardwood. Four bedrooms are located on the ground while the other four are on the second floor. The ground floor is connected to the second floor by a very unique concave staircase and opens to a wide sala and dining room. Capiz windows and ventanillas surround the second floor.
The house was abandoned for several years during the Japanese occupation. It became home to the first High School of Bago and office of different companies until the family of Tan Juan decided to donate it to the city of Bago in 1978 as the necessity for repair and renovations became to many to manage.
In 1996 it became the General Juan Araneta Residence and Landmark Museum. The city transformed it into a community museum downstairs and a depository of the illustrious sons of Bago which includes Jorge Vargas, Executive Secretary of President Manuel L. Quezon; Chief Justice Jose Yulo who served as the 5th House Speaker of the House of Representatives and Rafael M. Salas who became the first Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund in 1969..