A family house

The next official owner of the Fernandez House probably never enjoyed his new property. According to oral tradition, family patriarch Alfred Omolana Olaiya was in Calabar when the building on Tinubu Square finally came up for auction long after Cout's death in 1933. It was one of Olaiya's daughters who did the bidding in Lagos for him. It was sold for £ 2,500. Not long after, Alfred Olaiya got severely ill. He died in 1934, leaving behind eight wives and countless children.

For the first time, the monumental building on Tinubu Square was in the hands of indigenous Lagosians. It was Olaiya's son Daniel who gave it its new name. As the eldest son he was in charge of the place after his father's demise. Daniel decided to follow in the footsteps of Herbert Macaulay and open a restaurant. He called it Ilojo Bar, after a chief's title in Ekiti, the region his father came from. Gradually the name Casa do Fernandez would be forgotten and the building became known as Ilojo Bar. Or simply as Olaiya House.

Ilojo Bar quickly became a popular gathering place where Lagosians came to eat classic local dishes like 'ockro and foofoo' or 'amala and ewedu', as an announcement in a 1939 publication of Daily Times of Nigeria advertises. Also, the Olaiyas brought music to the venue. Older Lagosians remember how they saw local legends like juju pioneer Ayinde Bakare playing at Ilojo Bar. The son of the deceased patriarch'a seventh wife, Victor, would become a famous highlife musician.He eventually opened a shop for musical instruments on the ground floor, while the right side of the office space was rented out to travel agent Continental. Victor Olaiya's music shop was frequented by the big names of Nigerian music of the era. In his memoir, juju legend King Sunny Adé mentions how he bought his first guitar in that shop, for one pound and nine shillings. In the nineties Victor moved out with his music shop, as did the travel agent. The building suffered from lack of maintenance, as the many children who shared ownership of the property had different ideas about its upkeep. It would be one of the root causes of the eventual downfall of Ilojo Bar.