Landed Property for Sale Singapore

Bukit Tunggal Road and Chancery Lane is a Good Class Bungalow (GCB) large enough to hold parties for 200 and have 20 cars fit in its driveway. The double-storey mansion was designed by prominent local architect Albert Hong, chairman of RSP Architects Planners & Engineers. Hong is said to live in the neighbourhood, and owns several homes there."

At the corner of Bukit Tunggal Road and Chancery Lane is a Good Class Bungalow (GCB) large enough to hold parties for 200 and have 20 cars fit in its driveway. The double-storey mansion was designed by prominent local architect Albert Hong, chairman of RSP Architects Planners & Engineers. Hong is said to live in the neighbourhood, and owns several homes there.

The house on Bukit Tunggal Road has been put on the market. It has a built-up area of about 14,000 sq ft and sits on a freehold site of 20,355 sq ft. It has a garage that can fit three luxury cars and a driveway wide enough for a Rolls-Royce to turn around with ease, according to Jeffrey Sim, senior vice-president of Edmund Tie & Co Property Network, who focuses on marketing GCBs. Sim is the sole marketing agent for the property in Bukit Tunggal.

Designed in the style of a classic mansion straight out of a Hollywood movie, the house features an entrance hall with a sweeping staircase and a soaring 6m ceiling. The entrance hall leads to a grand drawing room, which is connected to a formal dining room that can seat 20 around the table. Both the drawing room and formal dining room have glass doors leading to the swimming pool.

The Good Class Bungalow sitting at the corner of Bukit Tunggal Road and Chancery Lane was rebuilt six years ago.

Adjacent to the dining room is a lounge that comes with a wine cellar for about 1,000 bottles. At the end of the hallway is an enclosed dry kitchen with an attached wet kitchen. The dry kitchen contains an island, three Bosch double-door refrigerators, a Teka stove top and appliances, as well as plenty of workspace and storage cabinets. Likewise, the wet kitchen is equipped for heavy-duty cooking. The kitchens are ideal for those who enjoy throwing big parties at home.

Adjoining the kitchens are the quarters for the helpers, who have their own dining area, a bedroom that can accommodate up to half a dozen workers, and an attached bathroom.

The second level of the house contains six sizeable rooms. The master suite alone is about 2,300 sq ft. There is also a junior master suite and another en suite bedroom. Of the remaining three rooms, one is now used as a family room-cum-study, while another has been turned into a linen room. The rooms are sizeable enough to be partitioned to create en suite bathrooms and turned into more junior master suites, says Sim.

The attic level now houses a gym and a concealed storeroom. However, there is enough space on this level for it to be turned into a den or a self-contained apartment with bathroom and pantry. A home lift, accessible from the driveway, goes to all three levels of the house.

The property was built six years ago and is still relatively new. Those who want to tear down the building and construct a new house of a similar size (about 14,000 sq ft) will need to spend $500 to $800 psf, which translates into a ballpark figure of $7 million to $11.2 million, estimates Sim. Owners can opt to make additions and alterations instead, which should cut the cost by at least half, he adds.

Prominent residents

The Bukit Tunggal GCB enclave includes the Chancery area, Dyson Road and Mount Rosie Road. Besides RSP’s Hong, another famous resident in the neighbourhood is Chua Thian Poh, chairman and CEO of listed property company Ho Bee Land. Business magnate and philanthropist Lee Kong Chian of Lee Rubber, OCBC Bank and Lee Foundation used to live in a mansion occupying a sprawling site on Mount Rosie Road.

The late S Rajaratnam, Singapore’s first Foreign Minister, also lived in Chancery Lane for many years, until his passing a decade ago. Three years ago, his estate put the GCB on Chancery Lane up for sale. Sitting on a freehold plot of 20,688 sq ft, the property was sold for $28.5 million ($1,378 psf), according to a caveat lodged in May 2013.

The house adjacent to Rajaratnam’s was sold 1½ years later, in December 2014, for $25.39 million ($1,061 psf). It was also an estate sale. Two other neighbouring GCBs on Chancery Lane have been put on the market. One of them is an original bungalow sitting on a freehold site of 21,500 sq ft with an asking price of $26 million ($1,209 psf). The house is also being marketed by Sim. The other is an original bungalow sitting on a slightly larger site of 22,000 sq ft. It has a price tag of $29.3 million ($1,332 psf).

The most recent transaction in the area was that of a bungalow on Chancery Hill Road. Although not a GCB, the bungalow sat on a relatively large freehold site of 12,777 sq ft, and was the home of a prominent eye surgeon known as Singapore’s “father of ophthalmology”, the late Professor Arthur Lim. The property was put up for sale by his estate in 2015 and sold for $12 million ($940 psf) in April this year. The house can be redeveloped into a two-storey, mixed-landed property under the 2014 Master Plan.

It was perhaps the Alsagoffs, the storied Arab Singaporean merchant family — spice traders and one of the biggest land owners — who turned Bukit Tunggal into a desirable neighbourhood for the seriously rich a century ago. The most prominent member of the family was said to be Syed Mohamed bin Ahmed Alsagoff, who reportedly owned a large estate in what was then known as Kampong Bukit Tunggal. His nephew Syed Omar Alsagoff, who lived in a palatial bungalow on the estate, was famous for throwing lavish parties at which he entertained European guests and served dinners on gold-plated tableware. His sons were said to have developed the Bukit Tunggal Estate in the 1920s, following his death.

Seventy years ago, some of the GCBs on Bukit Tunggal Road were sold for just $50,000. Today, they are worth 400 times more. Many of these original single-storey bungalows have since changed hands and been torn down. In their place are sprawling new mansions.

The drawing room and formal dining room have glass doors opening out to the swimming pool and patio

The driveway is large enough to park 20 cars and for a Rolls-Royce to turn around with ease

Buying opportunity

One such transformation is the GCB at the junction of Bukit Tunggal Road and Chancery Lane. The property last changed hands in April 2008 for $16.1 million ($791 psf), according to a caveat lodged then. The original single-storey bungalow was pulled down and rebuilt in 1991.

The owner, who purchased the house in 2008, also had it demolished, and the new home designed by RSP’s Hong was completed in 2010. The indicative price tag of the property is $38 million ($1,867 psf).

Sim: The Bukit Tunggal enclave is sought after, but very few GCBs come up for sale

According to Sim, the enclave is very accessible. “One can drive into the estate from Thomson Road via Chancery Lane, or from Whitley Road via Dyson Road or Malcolm Road,” he says. In the vicinity of the neighbourhood are top schools such as Anglo-Chinese School on Barker Road, St Joseph’s Institution on Malcolm Road, Singapore Chinese Girls’ School on Dunearn Road and Catholic Junior College on Whitley Road. The area is just a five-minute drive from the medical hub and malls at Novena, as well as a 10-minute drive from the CBD, Marina Bay and Orchard Road.

There are only 60 GCBs in the Bukit Tunggal enclave, estimates Sim. Some of the bungalows that were not zoned as GCBs have since been redeveloped into cluster housing, townhouses or low-rise condominium projects. The last time a GCB on Bukit Tunggal Road changed hands was three years ago, when a property sitting on a 10,516 sq ft plot was sold for $17.5 million ($1,665 psf), according to a caveat lodged in May 2013.

“The Bukit Tunggal enclave is sought after, but very few GCBs come up for sale,” says Sim. “This was once an area for the old rich. And now, over time, it has also become a desirable neighbourhood for professionals such as architects, bankers and doctors as well as business tycoons.”

This article appeared in The Edge Property pullout, Issue 741 (Aug 15, 2016) of The Edge Singapore.

GCB in Bukit Tunggal on the market for $38 mil - 12 August 2016