Restored House of Tan Yeok Nee opens Nov 1

SINGAPORE – The House of Tan Yeok Nee at 101 Penang Road – the sole survivor of Singapore’s Four Grand Mansions built by Teochew tycoons in the 1800s – will welcome the public on Nov 1 in a grand opening after extensive restoration works that took nearly four years to complete.

Standing proudly at the heart of Orchard Road, opposite The Istana, the building is a testament to the city’s memory, culture and identity, echoing ancestral stories through its gilded woodwork and intricate mouldings.

Considered by conservation experts as a masterpiece of Teochew architecture, the property is being reimagined by its new owner, the Karim Family Foundation, as a lifestyle hub with dining and entertainment options to be enjoyed by Singapore residents and visitors.

The foundation is the philanthropic arm of a group of companies owned by the Indonesian-Chinese Karim family, led by palm oil tycoon Bachtiar Karim.

The foundation’s director and principal Cindy Karim, 34, oversees the foundation’s charitable initiatives focused on four pillars: sports development; arts and culture; mental health; and education. She is the daughter of Mr Karim.

The house, which was declared a national monument in 1974, was sold to the Karim family in March 2022 for an undisclosed sum believed to be somewhere between $85 million and the asking price of $92 million. Including restoration, market watchers say the project easily cost more than $100 million.

The sellers were integrated real estate and healthcare company Perennial Holdings and asset management firm Charles Quay International. Each held a 50 per cent stake in the property.

In a statement to the press at the time, marketing agent Savills Singapore said the expression of interest in the property was overwhelming, with inquiries from many new buyers from countries such as China, Indonesia and India.

The double-storey building sits on a freehold site spanning 26,321 sq ft. It includes a central residence with two courtyards and a periphery of spaces that have been converted into offices for the Karim group of companies.

The project was awarded by the foundation in January 2022 to DP Architects (DPA).

DPA worked closely with conservation consultant and Associate Professor Yeo Kang Shua, who is the associate head of pillar for research, practice and industry at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.

Ms Karim, who has lived in Singapore since 1998 with her family, says that as an undergraduate at the Singapore Management University, she was always intrigued by the house’s ornate ridged roof and imposing facade when she drove past on her way to school.

“When it came up in late 2021 that the property was on sale, my family and I were very excited to make a bid for it,” Ms Karim tells The Straits Times in an exclusive interview from her office in one of the newly renovated rooms in the House of Tan Yeok Nee.

The family worked with DPA and Prof Yeo to restore the entire building to the original 1800s vision of towkay (Hokkien for business owner) Tan Yeok Nee, sparing no expense.

“The building has had so many incarnations in its 140-year history – a station master’s residence, the headquarters of the Salvation Army and two educational institutions – but it has never been truly open to the public to enjoy,” Ms Karim says.

“We wanted to authentically restore the house to just as it was in the 1800s, while also envisioning the space to be accessible for the public – with galleries and a restaurant – to allow visitors to not only step back in time, but also enjoy the house in new ways.”

In the line-up for the grand opening on the weekend of Nov 1 and 2 is a new Heritage Gallery featuring Singaporean artist Tan Ngiap Heng, the great-great-grandson of Tan Yeok Nee, who will present two series that explore ancestry and identity.

There will also be a photography exhibition by the Teochew Sim Clan and guided tours of the house led by docents from the Society of Tourist Guides (Singapore).

On Nov 6, the Loca Niru restaurant opens. The 36-seat fine-dining concept on the second level, by Gaia Lifestyle Group, is helmed by rising chef Shusuke Kubota, who pairs Japanese flair with French techniques.

DPA’s senior associate Shawn Teo and architectural executive Jiang Wenhuan flew to Chaozhou prefecture, China, in October 2023 with key staff from the Karim Family Foundation and a team of consultants to arrange for 30 skilled craftsmen, who included 20 masters of Teochew architecture, to come to Singapore to work on the restoration.

Since its completion in 1885, the house has changed hands several times, along with numerous alterations to its original design.

First, around the turn of the 20th century, the house was briefly acquired by the British colonial government to house the assistant manager of the Tank Road railway station.

According to the National Library Board’s Singapore Infopedia online platform, Mr Tan’s family left in 1902 due to the noise and dust from the construction of the nearby railway. Mr Tan died later that year in China at the age of 75.

When the railway staff moved, the government placed the house in trust for the Anglican bishop. In 1912, it became St Mary’s Home and School for Eurasian Girls.

In 1938, the Salvation Army took over and used the house as its headquarters from late May that year. After the ravages of World War II, the house underwent extensive repairs by the charitable organisation.

Later, around the years 1999 and 2000, there was a full-scale conservation effort by RSP Architects Planners & Engineers. It involved more than 100 craftsmen, who restored original decorative features, gable wall artworks, wood carvings and gold woodwork.

Work started in early 1999 to convert the house into the Asian campus of the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business in a $12 million preservation and renovation.

The house, together with the former Cockpit Hotel, was bought by a consortium led by developer Wing Tai Holdings in 1996.

The conservation effort won the house the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Architectural Heritage Award in 2001.

In 2022, the house served as the campus for higher education institution Amity Global Institute before the property was acquired by the Karim Family Foundation.

From 1882 to 1885, Mr Tan had overseen the design of his Singapore house in Tank Road (now 101 Penang Road) as a homage to his larger ancestral mansion in Chaozhou.

Born in 1827 in the Jin Sha village in Shang Pu (present-day Caitang), Chaozhou, the young Mr Tan left China to seek his fortune in South-east Asia, then commonly referred to as Nanyang. He later set up gambier and pepper plantations in Johor, Malaysia.

His Tank Road house was modelled closely on Cong Xi Gong Ci, the grand cluster house he had built for his Teochew clan in Jinsha Xiang, Chaozhou. It is believed to have been completed around 1884, about a year before his Singapore courtyard mansion was built.

Both houses are showcases of traditional southern Chinese architecture, with two large central halls separated by wide courtyards.

Auspicious flora and fauna of Chinese culture are displayed, such as orchids to denote resilience, bats and koi to symbolise abundance, and dragons to impart luck and prosperity.

A hallmark of Teochew design can be seen on the roof ridges, which feature intricate timber carvings, plaster reliefs and porcelain figurines created through a decorative process called “qianci”.

Skilled artisans, mainly from Chaozhou, use shards made from fired bowls to create mosaic patterns and classical Chinese figures on roof ridges and bas-reliefs on walls to depict Chinese people’s aspirations through richly ornamented surfaces.

The Singapore house’s details and symbolic motifs reinforce this architectural and cultural link to Mr Tan’s homeland.

Prof Yeo, conservation consultant for the project, says the challenges for the House of Tan Yeok Nee were complex because its layered history demanded careful discernment.

The mansion had undergone a major restoration from 1999 to 2000, which introduced significant interventions alongside retained 19th-century fabric.

Prof Yeo has authored several research papers on Singapore architectural history and heritage. He recently penned a book about the House of Tan Yeok Nee. Titled Honourable Mansion: The Invisible Hands Behind Singapore’s Last Traditional Teochew House, it was published by the International Council of Monuments and Sites Singapore Limited (Icomos Singapore) and supported by the Karim Family Foundation.

Icomos Singapore is the local chapter of the global, non-governmental organisation that works to establish best practices and protect cultural heritage worldwide.

The book will be launched on Nov 22 and will be available in major bookstores shortly after.

In 2021, Prof Yeo wrote Divine Custody: A History Of Singapore’s Oldest Teochew Temple, the first comprehensive book in English about the 200-year-old Wak Hai Cheng Bio (Yueh Hai Ching Temple) in Phillip Street, published by NUS Press.

The team’s foremost challenge was to understand how those earlier interventions had aged, how they blended or conflicted with the original construction, and how to restore authenticity without erasing the evidence of change.

A second challenge lay in the scarcity of traditional craftsmanship.

“Singapore no longer has craftsmen capable of restoring the intricate Teochew timber carvings, ceramic roof ornaments and decorative finishes that define the house’s identity,” says Prof Yeo, who is also vice-president of Icomos Singapore.

“This is not unique to this project, but reflects a wider issue affecting Chinese diasporic architecture in Singapore. To address this, we sought out skilled craftsmen directly from Chaozhou, ensuring that the materials, tools and methods used were consistent with the original building tradition.”

The third challenge was to reconcile heritage integrity with functional adaptation, meaning the owner’s needs – namely, modern adaptive reuse – had to be balanced with the house’s historical character.

This required innovative yet sensitive integration of contemporary systems, guided by a respect for the mansion’s spatial hierarchy and ornamental richness.

Prof Yeo says balancing cultural authenticity with contemporary use required a nuanced and layered approach that recognised the house’s long and complex history.

The House of Tan Yeok Nee had gone through several distinct phases, such as the time of Tan Yeok Nee himself, the period when it housed the Salvation Army, and the 1999-2000 restoration that adapted it for institutional use.

“Instead of privileging a single historical moment, the conservation strategy sought to make these layers legible, allowing the building to tell its own story across time.”

“After extensive historical research, I broadly categorised the house into three approaches, each corresponding to both a historical phase and a physical section of the mansion,” says Prof Yeo.

He looked at the first approach through the house’s distant past, encompassing the Entrance Hall and Main Hall, where much of the late 19th-century fabric remains intact.

The second approach was the recent past, corresponding to the Main Hall and the two-storey South Wing, where original features coexist with additions from the building’s institutional use.

The third approach contemplates the present and future, relating to the rear hall, where interiors had been more substantially modified in 1999 and 2000.

Each section was therefore treated with a calibrated conservation approach, namely preservation, repair or adaptation depending on its degree of authenticity and integrity.

“While the 1999-2000 restoration introduced contemporary functions for an educational institution, our current work involves refining, updating and even removing some of those interventions,” he says.

Some parts were removed, making it easier to appreciate the mansion’s original floor plan and the way the rooms and courtyards line up.

Upgrades to building services and environmental systems were also carried out discreetly to improve usability, while enhancing the legibility of the historic architecture.

Prof Yeo says: “The aim was not to return the house to a fixed point in the past, but to ensure that its Teochew architectural identity remains evident and meaningful in its new use.”

He adds that the House of Tan Yeok Nee is a reminder that heritage conservation in Singapore is not about nostalgia but continuity.

Its preservation demonstrates that traditional Chinese architecture, even when relocated from its original cultural context, can serve new purposes without losing its essence.

The project affirms that authenticity lies not only in materials, but also in values – namely the respect for spatial order, craftsmanship and symbolism that underpins Teochew architecture.

At the same time, he says, the project explores what it means to be sustainable within a dense urban environment like Singapore.

“On a tightly constrained site, there was limited opportunity to introduce large-scale sustainable technologies such as photovoltaic panels or rainwater harvesting systems,” Prof Yeo adds.

“We pursued measured adaptations, improving natural ventilation and reinstating the spatial understanding of the house through the removal of glass panels installed around the main courtyard during the 1999-2000 restoration, upgrading environmental systems for energy efficiency, and selecting low-impact materials for repairs.”

He notes that these strategies embody a form of sustainability rooted in longevity, adaptability and cultural continuity, rather than technological display.

For Singapore, the project signals a maturing understanding of heritage, one that acknowledges adaptation as part of a building’s life.

“For the broader region, particularly for at-risk Chinese diasporic architecture, it offers lessons in reconciling traditional material culture with modern expectations,” Prof Yeo says.

“By engaging authentic craftsmanship from its source region, grounding design decisions in rigorous research, and revealing rather than concealing layers of change, the project demonstrates how conservation can bridge the past and the future.”

DPA’s executive chairman Angelene Chan says her team’s four-year conservation process sharpened their appreciation of traditional construction techniques, many of which are no longer in practice.

It was also a reminder of the value of painstaking research, sensitive collaboration with Chinese artisans and respect for intangible heritage.

“The project broadened our perspective on conservation in Singapore. It is not only about safeguarding the physical fabric of a building, but also about nurturing a collective cultural memory and passing on a sense of continuity in an ever-changing city,” says Ms Chan, who is in her 60s and a recipient of the 2018 President’s Design Award for Designer of the Year.

“The House of Tan Yeok Nee is a defining endeavour for us. It has deepened DPA’s understanding of conservation as both a professional responsibility and a cultural privilege.”

The project’s helmsmen, DPA’s senior associate Mr Teo, 35, and architectural executive Mr Jiang, 33, agree. They say the opportunity to look beyond the technical aspects of conservation to engage with the deeper layers of history, craft and meaning was something that went beyond textbook learning.

“Since the start of the project in October 2021, the team encountered numerous challenges, ranging from differing views of authenticity regarding adaptive reuse to the availability of the best building materials,” says Mr Teo.

He adds that conservation is a niche speciality, marked by uncertainty about the actual building condition and the means to rehabilitate its historical fabric.

This project constantly required consensus to be reached among multiple parties, including the owner, consultants, contractors and even the authorities, in the midst of regulatory, cost and time pressures.

“Throughout the process, we challenged ourselves to honour a 140-year-old architectural gem by ensuring that our approach not only preserved its authenticity, but also imbued the landmark with resilience,” Mr Teo notes.

Mr Jiang, the youngest member of the team working on the project, says his most valuable takeaway was the chance to work with experts in the field, such as colleague Mr Teo and Prof Yeo.

“I observed how decisions were made while balancing limited resources, time and interpersonal relationships. The significance of the House of Tan Yeok Nee turned out to be greater than what I had initially expected,” Mr Jiang says.

He adds that when he walked through the courtyards, he could picture scenes of the house’s early days, with people dressed in Qing Dynasty robes, and children and nurses attending chapel service in the main hall, when the building was used to house St Mary’s Home and School for Eurasian Girls.

“Towards the later stages of the project, it became clear the house is a vital marker for the Singapore Chinese community, standing out as representative of Singapore in the wider network of historic Chinese houses across South-east Asia.”

One of the Teochew architecture masters working on the project was Mr Xie Yanmin, the chief craftsman overseeing intricate handcrafted works on the various surfaces of the house.

He says the team established a comprehensive project management system to strictly control progress, quality and cost. The decorative artisanal works were completed in less than eight months.

“Through tireless effort, the team not only delivered the project on schedule, but also achieved an exceptionally high standard, making this a successful example of national-level restoration,” says Mr Xie, 61, in Chinese via e-mail.

“We feel deeply gratified that through our modest contribution, we have built a cultural bridge between Singapore and China’s Chaoshan region, allowing this cross-national heritage gem to be seen, cherished and passed down for generations.”

The Chaoshan region encompasses the cities of Chaozhou, Jieyang and Shantou.

The Chaoshan region is critically important to Teochew architecture and heritage crafts, and it serves as the birthplace and cultural heartland of Teochew identity.

Its cities, especially Chaozhou and Shantou, are renowned for their distinctive courtyard houses, ancestral halls, intricate wood carvings, ceramic tilework and decorative screen techniques that define Teochew-style architecture.

Many of the master craftsmen and artisans who shaped the built environment and cultural practices of overseas Teochew communities – including Singapore’s – trace their roots and traditional knowledge back to Chaoshan’s architectural schools and guilds.

According to 81-year-old Ji Chuanying, founder of Ji Chuanying Ancient Building Construction Company, which is based in Guangdong’s Shantou city, the restoration team represents the finest skills in Teochew architecture.

He chose all the craftsmen for the project, forming a team composed of national- and provincial-level craftsmen known as Intangible Cultural Heritage inheritors in China.

There were about 20 master craftsmen in the 30-man team, specialising in traditional architecture. Of these, some are lecturers in China’s tertiary institutes such as Guangdong Construction Polytechnic and Shantou Polytechnic.

“Teochew craftsmen travelled across South-east Asia to participate in the construction of temples and other heritage buildings, earning widespread recognition for their skill. Through their craftsmanship and wisdom, this national treasure of Singapore was brought back to its former splendour,” says Mr Ji in Chinese via e-mail from his workshop and office in Chaozhou.

In 2014, under Prof Yeo’s supervision, he led a team from China who successfully restored Singapore’s Wak Hai Cheng Bio temple.

Mr Ji adds: “The restoration of the House of Tan Yeok Nee stands as a model of success, attesting to architectural craftsmanship that can rightfully be regarded as among the finest in all of Asia.”

Four stately courtyard mansions were built in Singapore in the 1800s to showcase the wealth and architectural heritage of Singapore’s Chinese community. Today, only the House of Tan Yeok Nee stands.

Little is known about the architectural histories of the other three houses, says Prof Yeo in a research paper he co-authored in 2021 with researcher Martina Yeo.

Clues are currently available through historical materials such as old maps, building plans and archival photographs.

Located at the corner of Hill Street and Loke Yew Street (near Armenian Church), the earliest of the Four Grand Mansions was built by Teochew tycoon Tan Seng Poh in 1869.

The site was significant as it housed Mr Tan, who was the head of the British-backed opium revenue farms and the first Chinese member of the Municipal Commission.

Its grand scale spanned about 21,500 sq ft and, colloquially, Armenian Street became known as “behind Seng Poh’s grand mansion” among the local Chinese.

Following Mr Tan’s death in 1879 and a change in family fortunes, the mansion was lost to mortgage debt and demolished between 1902 and 1904, making way for a row of shophouses by Mr Loke Yew.

Mr Loke was a prominent Cantonese business magnate and philanthropist active in British Malaya and Singapore during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Built in North Boat Quay (the current site of Parliament House field), Mr Seah Eu Chin’s house was generally believed to have been commissioned by his son, Mr Seah Cheo Seah.

The house once stood on a plot of about 18,700 sq ft, which the family sold in December 1918. Today, part of this land is occupied by the Parliament House.

The elaborate mansion boasted a striking entrance gate leading into a courtyard.

Mr Seah Eu Chin, famed as “the king of gambier and pepper,” helped pioneer commercial gambier planting in Singapore. He was also the founding president of Ngee Ann Kongsi, the oldest Teochew clan association here.

Established by Mr Seah Eu Chin and other Teochew community leaders, Ngee Ann Kongsi became the principal institution for the Teochew diaspora in Singapore, supporting welfare, education and cultural activities for the community.

Built in Hill Street (current site of Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce), the building sits on the site of the former mansion of Wee Ah Hood, one of the biggest gambier and pepper merchants of the mid-1800s.

The upper-class mansion was also the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s second operating office.

The chamber’s first office was at the old Thong Chai Medical Institution. The chamber bought the property in 1912.

The building was demolished in 1961. Construction work on SCCCI Building was completed in 1963 and officially opened in 1964.

The House of Tan Yeok Nee stands at bustling crossroads – a reflection of the prestige its owner commanded in colonial Singapore.

Originally from Chaozhou, Mr Tan Yeok Nee (also called Tan Hiok Nee) arrived in Singapore selling textiles and soon forged his way into the lucrative pepper, gambier, opium and spirits trade.

His bold business ventures quickly placed him among the city’s richest Teochew merchants. He built his private residence on a plot said to have extraordinary spatial attributes, according to ancient Chinese geomancy or fengshui.

The house had its back against Oxley Hill and a stream – present-day Stamford Canal – which flowed in front of it, across the low-lying grounds of Dhoby Ghaut.

It was believed that such a setting helped ward off evil and attracted wealth to the home owner.