A Mansion in Serangoon: Whampoa House-Bendemeer

By Dr Patricia Lin

Whampoa Hoo Ah Kay and guests at a moon gate of his mansion, mid-19th century. Collection of the National Museum of Singapore, National Heritage Board.

The name Nam Sang Hua Yuan (南生花园), or Nam-sang Fa-un in Cantonese, may not ring a bell today, but in the mid-19th century, it was one of Singapore’s most famous residences, attracting visitors from all over the world. Also known as Whampoa House, it was built by the businessman and community leader Hoo Ah Kay (胡亞基, Hu Ya Ji; better known as Whampoa), and was located about 5 km outside the city on Serangoon Road.

An Astute Businessman

Whampoa was born in the district of Whampoa (present-day Huangpu) in Canton (Guangzhou) in 1815 and arrived in Singapore in 1830 when he was 15. He built his company Whampoa & Co. as a ship chandler, supplying provisions to frigates that docked at the Singapore harbour. As the British Royal Navy’s primary food supplier, he formed a close friendship with Admiral Henry Keppel (Keppel Harbour was named in his honour), who frequently visited Whampoa’s home along with other personnel of the British navy.¹

Portrait of Whampoa Hoo Ah Kay, c. 1850s. Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore (Media - Image no. 19980006437 - 0084).

Whampoa’s fortune grew through selling foodstuffs, including bread and baked goods from his Havelock Road bakery, as well as meat and vegetables. He also owned an ice house in Boat Quay that sold ice imported from America.² In the era before refrigeration, ice was a necessary commodity for preserving perishables. Some Russian guests of Whampoa who once dined at his home marvelled at the cold water and beer served, which were kept cool by a system in Whampoa’s deep cellar that used nitre, or saltpetre (potassium or sodium nitrate).³

Whampoa’s ice house in Boat Quay, 1958. Collection of the National Library Singapore.

Whampoa’s business interests eventually intersected with politics and diplomacy.  In 1869, he was appointed a member of the Legislative Council and within a few years was made an extraordinary member of the Executive Council, the first and only Chinese to have held this seat. He was also appointed Vice Consul to Singapore for Russia in 1867 and Consul for China in 1877. In 1879, the Japanese government appointed him Vice Consul for Japan, thus making him a consul for three foreign countries.⁴

An Opulent Abode

Whampoa’s mansion became renowned for its sumptuous dinners and elaborate Chinese New Year celebrations that drew hundreds to its sprawling gardens, as well as countless parties attended by foreign dignitaries from China,⁵ Russia, Japan and the United Kingdom. Both Whampoa and his residence captured the attention of travel writers from around the world.

The Russian novelist Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov provides an extensive description of his 1853 visit to Whampoa’s home in his book, The Voyage of the Frigate Pallada, first published in 1858_._ According to Goncharov, his account did not capture even one-twentieth of the home’s true beauty and magnificence. Visitors entered through “a finely carved door” to find walls and furniture “exquisitely carved and sculpted”. Soft drapes “woven with gold thread and embroidered with silver ones” adorned the space. Goncharov noted that the furnishings blended “European comfort and Oriental opulence”.⁶

Photographs of the house in Whampoa’s time show that it had a solid exterior along the lines of Victorian English architecture. Initially constructed in timber around 1840, the house was later expanded with brickwork in 1855. The main entrance with a carriage portico, typical of the period, opened directly into a large and very grand dining room. The house was flanked by verandas, with lounge rooms, bedrooms and more verandas on the second floor. Chinese elements such as the moon gate (a circular or arched opening in a wall or garden structure) – where Whampoa was photographed with his wife and two of his children – were interspersed with gazebos. The 30-acre property included annexes housing the kitchen, stables and living quarters for servants.⁷

Although Goncharov noted furnishings and objects clearly belonging to women such as jewelled mirrors, dressing tables, jewellery boxes and scented pouches, no women were present when he visited Whampoa. Knowing that Whampoa had three wives, their absence mystified him. To cap the visit that included a tour of Whampoa’s famous gardens, Goncharov and his companions were treated to a feast “of countless delicacies”.⁸

While the house was impressive, it was Whampoa’s splendid gardens that elicited awe and admiration from visitors. In 1876, the world traveller August Daniel Frederickson visited Whampoa’s home and described it in his book, Ad Orientum (1889). Frederickson wrote: “Mr Whampoa, a rich Chinese merchant, has a large property in the neighbourhood, its gardens laid out after the fashion of the country of his birth, trim hedges, box and myrtle trained and clipped to shapes of animals, junks, etc., tiny watercourses, and miniature bridges.” He noticed a little stream with gold fish passing under the mansion’s central portion, forming an open gallery – a concept similar to the open air well found in many Peranakan houses – and supported by a high bridge that allowed a boat to pass underneath.⁹

Frederickson also extolled the beauty of Whampoa’s world-famous Vitória-Régia water lilies  (Victoria amazonica; the second largest in the water lily family) floating on what he called a “diminutive lake”. Each flower measured a foot (30.5 cm) across, while the circular leaves ranged from 4 to 6 ft (122–183 cm) in diameter with a raised rim of 2–3 in (5–7.5 cm).¹⁰ Whampoa’s pet poodle loved running about on the leaves, a sight that never failed to amuse visitors.

Whampoa’s famous Vitória-Régia water lilies, late 19th century. Photograph by G.R. Lambert & Co. Collection of the National Museum of Singapore, National Heritage Board.

Whampoa also had an aviary with peacocks and a “piggery” where fat, enormous pigs were kept, with some measuring 7 ft (213 cm) from snout to tail. To Frederickson’s satisfaction, the piggery was “wonderfully clean and neat in all its arrangements”.¹¹ Topping it all was Whampoa’s menagerie which housed a vicious cassowary that often attacked unwary visitors, some monkeys and a silvery-white Arabian horse.¹²

Besides Whampoa House, Whampoa owned several other commercial and private establishments, including the plot of land bounded by Grange Road and River Valley Road (where the Spring Grove condominium project stands today). It remains unknown whether Whampoa lived in one of the three modest houses on this allotment before selling the land in 1849 to focus on developing the house and grounds on Serangoon Road.¹³

In choosing a location away from the city, Whampoa pioneered a trend that other wealthy Chinese would emulate in the 1890s. He recognised how a home’s size, opulence and novelty could serve both as a symbol and a statement of social standing. However, not all of Whampoa’s businesses, particularly the ones jointly held with Europeans, did well.¹⁴ The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser noted that “towards the latter end of his life… Whampoa had to restrict his former lavish expenditure”.¹⁵

New Owner, New Name

After Whampoa’s death in 1880,¹⁶ Seah Liang Seah, one of Singapore’s wealthiest and most prominent Chinese towkays, purchased Nam Sang Hua Yuan in the late 1890s. He renamed it “Bendemeer”¹⁷ at the suggestion of Governor of the Straits Settlements Charles Mitchell, or Ming Li Yuan (明丽园) in Chinese.¹⁸

Portrait of Seah Liang Seah by G.R. Lambert & Co., 1900. Image reproduced from Song Ong Siang, One Hundred Years’ History of the Chinese in Singapore (London: John Murray, 1923), 212. Collection of the National Library Singapore (call no. RRARE 959.57 SON).

Although the architect and author Lee Kip Lin speculated that Seah “demolished” Whampoa’s house and built a new structure, an 1895 report by the Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser mentions that Whampoa “built a house at Serangoon over the water, which is still standing as well as the fine house standing in the grounds which has been acquired by Mr. Seah Liang Seah”.¹⁹

Side view of Bendemeer, 1963. Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore (Media - Image no. 19980005646 - 0072).

Following his predecessor’s tradition, Seah hosted lavish parties where guests included royalty, governors, performing artistes, revolutionaries, businessmen and government officials. These were often described in detail in the newspapers of the day.

For his housewarming party in March 1895, Seah invited 500 guests, including Governor Mitchell, who “remembered nearly 40 years ago visiting ‘Whampoa’s House’, Singapore, which was well-known in England and elsewhere, and he hoped the present owner would make it as famous as the former owner had”. Among the guests were some 120 Chinese “of all classes of the community” who were treated to a dinner that did not end until many felicitations in Chinese were offered. The European guests had earlier been served refreshments “on an extensive scale” in the dining room that Whampoa had expanded along the verandas. An “Austrian band was stationed in the inner vestibule, and throughout the evening it rendered a fine selection of music”.²⁰

In August 1896, Seah hosted a luncheon at Bendemeer for 50 people in honour of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) of Siam (present-day Thailand), with the famous gardens serving as a backdrop for commemorative photos.²¹ In April, Seah had also welcomed Li Hung Chang, the ambassador from the Emperor of China, for an evening visit.²²

The visits and grand parties continued well into the 1900s. On 2 May 1902, the Straits Times reported that “His Highness Prince Tsai Cheng [of China] accompanied by his suite and the Chinese Consul-General visited Bendemeer yesterday afternoon”.²³ Beyond officials from the Qing court, Bendemeer welcomed anti-Qing revolutionaries in the early 1900s, including Sun Yat-sen himself.²⁴ European leaders also visited Bendemeer, among them Prime Minister of France Georges Clemenceau, who expressed delight in touring Bendemeer and viewing Seah’s “famous collection of China and other articles of vertu” in 1920.²⁵

On 9 February 1909, Seah threw a particularly lavish party at Bendemeer. “Mr. Seah Liang Seah, the doyen of Straits-born Chinese, held a most successful ‘At Home’ at his fine house, Bendemeer, Sirangoon-rd [sic], yesterday afternoon,” reported the Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser. “The house and grounds are always worth looking over, and as the afternoon was beautifully fine, till quite late, the proceedings were animated and successful."²⁶

The gathering brought together Singapore’s colonial elite and numerous Chinese businessmen. Guests included Governor of the Straits Settlements John Anderson, Major General Perrott and Mrs Perrott, Sir W. Hyndman and Lady Hyndman Jones, and Sir Arthur Young and Lady Evelyn Young. Refreshments were served “in the true Seah style” and Seah “did everything possible for the comfort and enjoyment of his guests, and worthily sustained the hospitable traditions of Bendemeer”.²⁷

Entertainment included games such as clock golf, croquet, driving, and fishing and shooting competitions, with attractive prizes, while the 99th Deccans Band played music. The governor gave a speech of thanks, and in response, Seah congratulated him for selecting a day with the finest weather before his departure from Singapore.²⁸

Among those whom Seah invited to tea at Bendemeer was the English writer Mrs Florence Caddy, who toured the Far East aboard the Duke of Sutherland’s yacht, the Sans Peur. She described “dishes of curious confectionery, and all the fruits of the country arranged with flowers, ferns, and above all, roses”. The roses were particularly noteworthy as Singapore was too hot to grow them, requiring Seah to import fresh rose bushes every year from China.²⁹

Not All Roses

At Bendemeer, as with several other rumah besar (Malay for “large house”), unpleasant incidents occurred from time to time. On one occasion, a Chinese coolie was arrested for attempting to “stupefy the fish” in the garden ponds. Caught red-handed with a bucket ready for his haul, the coolie was made to pay a $25 fine or face a month’s hard imprisonment.³⁰

In contrast to the praise levelled on the piggery’s cleanliness during Whampoa’s time, Seah became embroiled in controversy over unsanitary pig farming in the suburbs in 1895. Public complaints related to the accumulation of pig faeces and the smell of pig urine along Serangoon Road. Involved in rearing pigs himself, Seah was called to testify on behalf of pig farmers against calls to halt pig farming in the area.³¹

The End of an Era

Seah died on 14 September 1925 after a long and illustrious career as a legislator, philanthropist and prominent public figure. It remains unclear whether he lived at Bendemeer in his final years, as his mile-long funeral cortege was said to have departed from his home at 14 North Boat Quay rather than Bendemeer.³²

By the 1950s, Bendemeer had fallen into disrepair, with its once-magnificent gardens overtaken by wild plants. In 1964, the Singapore government acquired the site and demolished the stately home, which had hosted royalty and other luminaries, to make way for the Kallang Basin housing and industrial development. Today, the site is part of the Boon Keng housing estate.³³

About the Author
Dr Patricia Lin has a PhD in Comparative Literature and Critical Theory from the University of Southern California. She is retired Professor Emeritus in the Department of Gender, Ethnicity, and Multicultural Studies at California State Polytechnic University.