Potentially a tricky one to find but, actually, the view from the rear terrace (see below) - towards Aberdeen and Ap Lei Chau - was quite useful in pinpointing the general area.
Luckily the Streetview car has been by here which means I don't have to go (...and get arrested for taking photos of someone's house!). According to the Centamap map, the house has been given the name 'Yapp'.
4 comments:
A quick check of Google suggests that someone rather famous lived here at the time or perhaps shortly before.
None other than Simon Murray -- former group managing director of Hutchison Whampoa and a director at Cheung Kong, among many, many other roles -- lived here in early 1987, according to the Canadian corporations database listing of a company related to Hutchison's purchase of Husky Oil.
Murray is said to be the oldest person to be the oldest person to have made an unsupported trek to the South Pole (some 12 years ago, at the age of 63). Gwulo also seems to have had pages confirming his link to 8 Mount Cameron Rd. at some point, although they've vanished now and are only hinted at by some stray Google results.
And as for the house itself, there are expired property listings from SCMP and others suggesting that it had a monthly rental of HK$330k in late 2004, and was up to HK$520-565k per month by its most recent listing just this last summer. That's a pretty spectacular sum for a property with a saleable area of just 4,000 square feet -- about HK$1,695 per square foot per year!
Property listings put the place as having been built in 1945, and say it's a four-bed, three-bath (two ensuite) with two maids' rooms and outdoor parking for two cars. And you can see inside it here (ignore the fact the page is greyed out; you can still click on the thumbnails to see the photos):
http://www.insightproperty.com.hk/property/the-peak/8-mount-cameron-road/2616
Looks like the rear terrace has gained a glass curtain "fence", but otherwise it's pretty much unchanged. And you've got that oh-so-practical Hong Kong must-have, a fireplace! Superb. ;-)
I suspect that the house predates 1945. The only reason I say this is because 1945 seems to have become the default build date for many a pre-war building - perhaps due to damage done to land registry records during fighting and subsequent occupation?
Gwulo has a map from circa 1950 (http://gwulo.com/atom/15669) that shows the house prior house number changes.
As for Simon Murray, yes, I have heard of him. I believe he is ex-military which is why he may have been open to letting an Army series film at his house. I think this may be his daughter: https://youtu.be/xl7sbXD5FWU
She's not very funny...
Wow, yeah. She is not funny at all; she's incredibly annoying.
I'm sure you're right that records were lost for many buildings, so 1945 likely means earlier. Wonder how many houses are in construction date limbo like that, these days? Probably quite a few on Hong Kong Island, I'd imagine.
Yeah, there was a big online spat between her and some expat blogger who called her out on it. That's when her real identity came out. She was actually trying to justify it as humerous which I think most people who live in the real world would find it hard to see.
The 1945 thing came up a while back when looking at build dates on the online land registry website. I can't say whether it's across the board as I can't imagine all records were lost but I have heard that a lot of stuff was just lost over time, maybe not through direct action but just as a side effect of chaotic times.
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