Mary Anne Aboitiz-Arculli
Owner, Maria Luisa Properties
When you’re born with two of Cebu’s most prominent last names, as Mary Anne Aboitiz-Arculli was, your influence in the region is inherent and deeply rooted. An Aboitiz on her father’s side and an Osmeña on her mother’s, she attended university at Georgetown in Washington, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business.
She then went to London to take up a study programme at Sotheby’s, as well as an art and interior design programme at the Inchbald School of Design. While in London, she met Derek Arculli, son of the prominent Hong Kong solicitor Ronald J. Arculli. Mary Anne and Derek married in 1996, then settled down in Hong Kong, where she worked as an interior designer for the prestigious firm Hirsch Bender. In 2003, the couple decided to move back to Cebu.
Now, Aboitiz-Arculli helps manage her family’s Maria Luisa Properties, a company that owns and develops some of Cebu’s most covetable addresses. She also applies her knowledge of the arts as a patron of the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong.
“Everything in this house—our whole home—was made in Cebu, or the Philippines. I would never think of putting anything else. What for? This is who we are and what we love.”
Did You Know?
Mary Anne Aboitiz-Arculli met her husband Derek on a blind date. She says that on her way to that date, she was nearly run over by a man trying to park his car—a man who turned out to be Derek himself.