House of Tan Yeok Nee

Background

The House of Tan Yeok Nee is situated at the junction of Clemenceau Avenue (formerly Tank Road) and Penang Road.¹ Constructed between 1882 and 1885 as the residence of businessman Tan Yeok Nee, it was one of four residences built in Singapore at the end of the 19th century in the traditional southern Chinese style, and the only one remaining today.² The building was gazetted as a national monument on 19 November 1974.³

History
Tan was a wealthy Teochew businessman who invested in gambier, pepper, spirit and opium farms in Johor and Singapore.⁴ Regarded as a distinguished gentleman by British officials, he often represented the Chinese business community in official events.⁵

The House of Tan Yeok Nee was built at a time when nutmeg plantations and fruit trees along Orchard Road were giving way to residential development as more people moved to areas closer to town.⁶ While waiting for his new house to be completed, Tan lived in colonial engineer G. D. Coleman’s residence along Coleman Street.⁷

By 1902, Tan and his family had moved out of the house because of the din and dust from the railway construction at Tank Road. The building later became the station master’s residence.⁸ When the railway was relocated, the government gave the house to the Anglican bishop of Singapore, Charles James Ferguson-Davie, in the form of a trust.⁹ In 1912, it became St Mary’s Home and School, which catered to Eurasian girls.¹⁰

The house was acquired by the Salvation Army in 1938, and officially became the organisation’s central command headquarters on 28 May 1938 – the third anniversary of its first official meeting in Singapore.¹¹

During World War II, the house was occupied by the Japanese army, who inflicted considerable damage to it.¹² After the war, the Salvation Army spent a considerable sum to restore the house before it was officially reopened on 6 July 1951 by then Governor Franklin Gimson.¹³

In 1991, the Salvation Army relocated its headquarters to Bishan.¹⁴ The House of Tan Yeok Nee was then sold to hotelier Teo Lay Swee who had also acquired the nearby Cockpit Hotel.¹⁵ In 1996, the house was bought over by a consortium led by Wing Tai.¹⁶ It was restored in 1999 and became the Asian campus of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.¹⁷ The house was sold to Perennial Real Estate Holdings in 2013, and it was planned to house an upmarket traditional Chinese medicine centre.¹⁸

Description
The House of Tan Yeok Nee is a typical southern Chinese residential mansion constructed by Chinese craftsmen.¹⁹ It sits on an east-west orientation and its design aligns with feng shui principles. Whilst its street-facing front appears modest except for the large doorway, its interior is expansive and commodious.²⁰

Surrounded by high walls, the house has two courtyards along a central axis and several rooms arranged symmetrically. The imposing entrance hall would have been the ancestral room and reception hall.²¹ The distinctive Chinese roofs are in the southern Fujian (minnan) style with curved eaves and roof brackets decorated with carved mythical beasts. The house, however, is not completely Chinese in design. It also includes European features such as Tuscan order pilasters and French windows in the rear hall.²²

A unique mosaic technique was used to depict flora, fauna and human images in relief. It makes use of broken ceramic pieces attached to bas-relief or full relief to bring character to the images. Known as jian nian, meaning “cut and paste”, the technique was popular in Canton (today’s Guangzhou) in the 1870s even though it is often known as the Fujian style.²³ Also characteristic of the house are the wood carvings, calligraphy and paintings in cia hua style, and moulded panels in ni su style.²⁴

The restoration project of 1999 involved 100 Chinese craftsmen who reconstructed the house at a cost of S$12 million. The project was supervised by RSP Architects Planners & Engineers.²⁵ The restored house won a special commendation at the French Prix d’Excellence in 2002.²⁶



Author
Vernon Cornelius



References
1. “Fact,” Straits Times, 4 December 2011, 18; “Restoration to Cost $12 Million,” Straits Times, 26 January 1999, 28 (From NewspaperSG); Urban Redevelopment Authority for Preservation of Monuments Board, House of Tan Yeok Nee Preservation Guidelines, vol. 1 (Singapore: Urban Redevelopment Authority, 1991), 6. (Call no. RSING 363.69095957 HOU)
2. “House of Tan Yeok Nee,” National Heritage Board, accessed 4 May 2017; “A Rich History,” Straits Times, 25 April 2000, 34; Josephine Chew, “Grand Ol’ Dame Gets New Lease of Life,” Straits Times, 25 April 2000, 34; Peter Keys, “The House Of,” Straits Times, 16 March 1983, 10. (From NewspaperSG)
3. “Townhouses of Ancient Chinese Towkays,” Straits Times, 29 November 1981, 48. (From NewspaperSG)
4. National Heritage Board, “House of Tan Yeok Nee”; “Ancient Chinese Towkays”; Gretchen Liu, In Granite and Chunam: The National Monuments of Singapore (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1996), 213 (Call no. RSING 725.94095957 LIU); Song Ong Siang, One Hundred Years' History of the Chinese in Singapore (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1984), 335. (Call no. RSING 959.57 SON-[HIS])
5. Song, One Hundred Years' History of the Chinese, 335.
6. Urban Redevelopment Authority for Preservation of Monuments Board, House of Tan Yeok Nee Preservation Guidelines, 6.
7. Liu, Granite and Chunam, 213.
8. National Heritage Board, “House of Tan Yeok Nee.”
9. National Heritage Board, “House of Tan Yeok Nee”; Keys, “The House Of”; “Townhouses of Ancient Chinese Towkays”; Liu, Granite and Chunam, 214.
10. Liu, Granite and Chunam, 214.
11. Chew, “Grand Ol’ Dame Gets New Lease of Life”; “Rich History”; Liu, Granite and Chunam, 214.
12. National Heritage Board, “House of Tan Yeok Nee”; Liu, Granite and Chunam, 214.
13. Keys, “The House Of”; “Townhouses of Ancient Chinese Towkays”; Liu, Granite and Chunam, 214; National Heritage Board, “House of Tan Yeok Nee.”
14. National Heritage Board, “House of Tan Yeok Nee”; “Rich History”; Chew, “Grand Ol’ Dame Gets New Lease of Life.”
15. Liu, Granite and Chunam, 214; Kalpana Rashiwala, “Wing Tai Unit Forks Out $380M for Cockpit Hotel,” Straits Times, 27 September 1996, 76. (From NewspaperSG)
16. Cheah Ui-Hoon, “Kudos for House of Tan Yeok Nee,” Business Times, 1 June 2002, 3; Marissa Chew, “Learning in the Lap of History,” Business Times, 6 April 2000, 1. (From NewspaperSG)
17. “Restoration to Cost $12 Million.”
18. Kalpana Rashiwala, “Next Change for House of Tan Yeok Nee,” Business Times, 5 February 2016, 15; “Perennial Buying Last Courtyard Home,” Straits Times, 27 September 2013, 19. (From NewspaperSG)
19. Urban Redevelopment Authority for Preservation of Monuments Board, House of Tan Yeok Nee Preservation Guidelines, 6.
20. Liu, Granite and Chunam, 213–4.
21. Liu, Granite and Chunam, 214.
22. Liu, Granite and Chunam, 214; Urban Redevelopment Authority for Preservation of Monuments Board, House of Tan Yeok Nee Preservation Guidelines, 6.
23. Liu, Granite and Chunam, 214.
24. Cheah, “Kudos for House of Tan Yeok Nee.” 
25. “Restoration to Cost $12 Million”; Chew, “Grand Ol’ Dame Gets New Lease of Life.”
26. Cheah, “Kudos for House of Tan Yeok Nee”; “About FIABCI,” FIABCI, accessed 18 May 2015.



Further resources
Chan Yew Lih, Heng Chye Kiang and Gretchen Liu, The House of Tan Yeok Nee: The Conservation of a National Monument (Singapore: Winpeak Investment, 2003). (Call no. RSING 725.94095957 CHA)

G. Uma Devi et al., Resonance: Songs of Our Forefathers (Singapore: Preservation of Monuments Board, 2009), 166–71. (Call no. RSING 725.94095957 RES)

National Archives of Singapore, St Mary’s Home, Singapore, 1910, photograph, National Archives of Singapore (media-image no. 19980005093-0097)

Wan Meng Hao and Jacqueline Lau, Heritage Places of Singapore (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2009), 121–3. (Call no. RSING 959.57 WAN-[HIS])



The information in this article is valid as of 2016 and correct as far as we are able to ascertain from our sources. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete history of the subject. Please contact the Library for further reading materials on the topic.