Emerald Hill Conservation Houses, Singapore
Emerald Hill Conservation Houses are valuable houses located just off Orchard Road, close to the Somerset MRT Train station. The current market book values of houses that are completed renovated are in the S$8 million regions. The rental values vary from $10,000to $18,000 per month.
The houses are collectively known as the Peranakan houses, where in the olden days (early 1900’s) wealthy Chinese families who adopted the Malay style of living gathered to establish their own brand of Peranakan food.
Emerald Hill has been the setting of many famous short stories by Singaporean writer, Goh Sin Tub, like ‘The Ghost of Lover of Emerald Hill’ (1987), ‘The Battle of the Bands’ (1987), ‘The Nan-Nei-Su Girls of Emerald Hill’ (1989), and ‘The Sin-Khek’ (1993).
At the present moment, two terrace houses, No. 15 and No. 17 Emerald Hill are under intensive restorations. I have made internal inspections of both properties.
The floor plans before the alterations and restorations can be seen by the rough sketches below:
There were two floors with an open air well in the middle of the building creating an open air area. This open void of an area was usually roofed in corrugated iron with drawn-ropes attached so that the open area can be opened (when it was not raining) and closed when it rained.
The renovated and retrofitted building has three levels on both front and rear ends of the long site. The renovated floor plans look like the drawings shown below:
https://www.ura.gov.sg/uol/conservation/conservation-xml.aspx?id=EMHL
ABOUT EMERALD HILL
Formerly plantation land, the area was subdivided and developed into a fashionable abode for wealthy Chinese and Straits-Chinese merchants and their families at the turn of the 20th Century.
Their dwellings comprised of terrace houses of a variety of architectural styles (ranging from Transitional, Late to Art-Deco) as well as independent mansions (now demolished). Many feature ornate pintu-pagars and have ground floor facades decorated with attractive ceramic tilework. Elaborate plaster work and wood carvings combine to create an architectural hybrid that is also referred to as ‘Chinese Baroque’.
In 1985, the URA announced that Emerald Hill would be a conservation area, the first in Singapore, in order to conserve some of the best examples of Straits Chinese style of dwellings. The conservation area also includes the development known as ‘Peranakan Place’, which is a row of 6 two-storey shophouses (circa 1902) fronting Orchard Road. This was a pilot restoration and development project carried out by the URA in 1985.
The area today is an attractive and quiet residential area with several commercial units in the main shopping zone near Orchard Road.
Emerald Hill received formal conservation status on 7 July 1989.
Emerald Hill boasts a number of high-quality restoration projects that have won the URA Architectural Heritage Award.
41 Emerald Hill Road
74 Emerald Hill Road
94 Emerald Hill Road
77 Emerald Hill Road
6 Emerald Hill Road
45 Emerald Hill Road
50 Emerald Hill Road
66 Emerald Hill Road
63 Emerald Hill Road
65 Emerald Hill Road