Source : Sunday Times - 29 Mar 2009
Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan is not the only person who has a prized collection of old Chinese wooden houses.
Mr Winston Lim, a Singaporean businessman based in Shanghai, also collects the classical timber structures, which date back more than 300 years to the Ming and Qing dynasties.
While Chan has seven houses stored in a warehouse in Hong Kong, Mr Lim has 30 in Shanghai, each worth at least 8 million yuan (S$1.8 million). And he has grand plans for them.
The 49-year-old is planning to incorporate the houses into his upcoming luxury boutique hotel in Zhu Jia Jiao town near Shanghai. To be completed next year, the 180-million yuan hotel will have 60 suites, a spa and restaurants. There will also be a museum for Ming dynasty antique furniture and it will house pieces from his personal collection.
To be put on sale are another five double-storey private villas, built from the old houses. The villas are worth between 80 million and 100 million yuan each. They each have a built-up area of 3,000 sq m and will have six to eight suites.
Mr Lim, who will run the hotel with a Singaporean partner, said the project would give these houses ‘a new purpose’ and that it would be easier to maintain them this way. He added: ‘It is also a chance to show off the Chinese heritage.’
Gongfu star Chan, whose collection is worth more than $100 million, caused a stir last month when he announced that he would donate his houses to Singapore’s fourth university after his requests to donate them to Hong Kong were ignored by the government.
Then less than three weeks later, he reportedly changed his mind and may keep them in Hong Kong after all.
This led Mr Lim to approach LifeStyle last week, saying that he hopes to offer a few of his houses to the university in place of Chan’s. ‘These houses are disappearing quickly and this is a piece of history that would add value to the university. I hope my donation will help the people of Singapore understand more about their own heritage and culture.’
The tertiary institution, set to open in 2011, will offer courses in design, engineering, architecture and business.
Mr Lim, who has yet to approach the university about the donation, first chanced upon the houses around Shanghai five years ago. Formerly occupied by wealthy merchants and government officials, they boasted intricate carvings of floral patterns, animals and human figures.
Enthralled by their beauty and architecture, he paid about 100,000 yuan for his first house and more than 500,000 yuan for each subsequent house.
The buildings were carefully dismantled, then transported to his 10,000 sq m warehouse where they were restored and put back together again.
Their value has since gone up because the Chinese government has earmarked them for conservation and there is an increase in demand for them by collectors, he said. Now, such relics are no longer available for sale.
‘You cannot help but be attracted to such classical architecture,’ said Mr Lim, who comes from a traditional Chinese family and was trained as an architect in the University of California, Berkeley.
His family owns the popular Hokkien eatery, Beng Thin Hoon Kee at OCBC Building in Chulia Street, where he used to help out when he was younger.
The former student of Catholic High and Raffles Institute was involved in conserving Raffles Hotel in the mid-1980s. He also worked on other hotel projects in Hong Kong, Bangkok and Australia.
He owned a dry-cleaning service here in the late 1990s, during which he met his Sichuan-born wife Didi Yue, 33, who was studying here at the time. They now live in downtown Shanghai with their two sons, Marcus, aged 21/2 years, and Jed, six months.
His obscure investment in the houses is paying off. His mix of single- and double-storey houses are now worth almost 26 times their original price five years ago. But he has no intention of letting any of them go.
‘I want to give them a new lease of life and pass them on for future generations to enjoy,’ he said.
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