Santiago Arana Ansotegi, owner of a prosperous shipyard on the Nervión Estuary, decides in 1857 to build the family dwelling in the then No. 10 Ibáñez de Bilbao Street in Bilbao, in the Abando district.

Little would Santiago Arana have been able to imagine that with the passage of time his house would become the symbol of the Basque nationalists whose consciences were spurred on by the last of their descendants.

Sabino's childhood passes peacefully in the Abando house, until in 1873 the family must go into exile in Iparralde in consequence of the support that his father lends to the Carlist cause.

In Laburdi he studies at the Colegio San Luis de Gonzaga. Later he takes classes from an Alavese ex-Carlist officer.

The family returns to Bilbao in 1876 and Sabino enters the Jesuit secondary school in Orduña. When he is close to finishing he suffers a serious illness, so serious that it was feared he might not survive.