Hilltop sanctuary for $35 million
A GCB owner offers buyers a rare designer home with a Made Wijaya-designed resort garden atop Peirce Hill.
A decade ago, when a Good Class Bungalow (GCB) perched on top of Peirce Hill and located at the end of a cul-de-sac was put up for sale, it attracted the attention of a prolific house-hunter who only wants to be known as Agarwal.
By the time he and his wife visited the house, they had already seen more than 60 GCBs in the course of a year.
“Many of the houses were newly built, and had many rooms, but the bedrooms were tiny,” he says.
The Peirce Hill GCB was eight years old then and was not well maintained as it had been tenanted for many years.
While Agarwal’s wife had reservations, given the state it was in, he was excited by its potential.
“I told her not to worry as the house could always be demolish ed and rebuilt,” recounts the former senior executive at Intel and Microsoft, who is now a businessman dealing in medical devices.
The sitting room of the house at Peirce Hill
“But the hilltop location is unmatched and it has an auspi cious house number.” They purchased the house in January 2006.
While it might have been less expensive to tear down and redevelop the house, the work involved would have taken three years to complete.
Agarwal decided to retain the structure of the building and undertake an extensive renovation instead, as that could be completed in a shorter time.
He was actively involved in the entire process, from appointing the architects, consultants and various designers to choosing the materials to use.
He spent 20 to 30 hours each week visit ing the site every day and meeting with the renovation team.
“I may not be a developer, but I’m a businessman and I made sure that I hired experts for the job,” Agarwal says.
He appointed Liu & Wo the design architect as he had seen the company’s work in a series of GCBs on Belmont Road and in Leedon Park for niche developer George Lim a decade earlier.
Wide open spaces and natural light
The Agarwals wanted a spacious home where they could entertain 150 to 200 people easily.
What they got was a double-storey house of about 9,000 sq ft, sitting on a freehold land size of 15,421.4 sq ft.
There’s space for a big entertainment room and living room, a sitting room, formal dining room and even space for a grand piano on the first level.
“We wanted a house with wide open spaces and high ceiling, the kind we were used to when we were living in Portland, Oregon,” says Agarwal.
“It was a beautiful 10,000 sq ft [house] sitting on land of more than an acre tucked in the woods.
In the summer, the deer would walk right into our backyard.
And it was just a 10-minute drive to downtown Portland.” Every room in the Peirce Hill GCB was, therefore, designed to allow natural light to filter in and offer a view of the greenery.
Renowned landscape architect Made Wijaya was flown in from Bali together with four of his craftsmen to design the garden, pergola, feature walls at the swimming pool and outdoor shower.
The effect is “a tropical paradise”, says the owner.
Wijaya is renowned for his design of resorts in Bali, including the Amandari in Ubud, Four Seasons in Jimbaran Bay and Bali Hyatt in Sanur.
Agarwal even engaged him to design the main entrance doorway.
“My wife and I love to travel and we visited an Aman property.
We saw a particular door that we liked, took some pictures of it and showed them to Made Wijaya.
He came up with eight to 10 different designs for the entrance, and we chose one,” he says.
No expenses spared
No expenses were spared in flying in leading consultants and architects to work on the reno vation.
An architect from German lighting firm Erco did the lighting plan for the entire house and suggested the most suitable lights for each room.
“The beauty of Erco’s lighting is that even when you’re sitting under the spotlights, they don’t bother you,” Agarwal says.
More than half a million dollars was spent on lighting and light fixtures alone.
As his wife loves to cook, another $500,000 was spent on the design of the kitchen, which was fitted with custom-made cabinets by Italian brand Toncelli.
Top-end German brand Gaggenau appliances were also installed.
The custom-designed breakfast table with dining chairs from French furniture company Ligne Roset faces a set of sliding glass doors that open out to a balcony and views of the greenery outside.
“We had the choice of spending half a million, or just $100,000 for the whole kitchen with China-made cabinets, but we said no [to the latter].
We only live once, so we wanted the best possible materials and construction quality,” Agarwal says.
Even the curtain rods for all the windows were customised — by designers from California- based American home furnishing company Restoration Hardware.
He spent “almost $250,000 on the curtain rods alone” and another $100,000 on curtain fabrics that would match the furniture.
Most of the furniture in the house was custom-made by a designer from Italian furniture company Minotti, although there are some select pieces from other Italian brands such as Casa Milano and Maxalto, a line of furniture by Antonio Citterio for B&B Italia.
The entire first level of the house has Italian marble flooring, while the second level has hardwood flooring.
All four bedrooms, including the master and study, are on the second level and they all open out to a spacious family room.
Within the master suite is a work space that can be converted into a fifth bedroom, if needed.
The master suite comes with a spacious walk-in wardrobe, palatial master bedroom and bathroom, and its own balcony.
All in, Agarwal is said to have spent $5 million on the construction of the GCB and another $1 million on furnishing it.
‘Once-in-a-lifetime experiences’
Agarwal has several “favourite spots” in his home.
One is the living room, where he likes to sit in the evenings with a glass of wine, the main doors wide open to enjoy the breeze, as he looks out to the swimming pool.
The pergola overlooking the pool
“That’s when I think about the purpose of my life, and what I plan to do with it over the next 20 to 30 years,” he says.
Another favourite spot is a comfortable garden seat at the verandah overlooking the swimming pool.
A third is his study, where he spends most of his time because that’s where he works.
Buying the GCB and living at Peirce Hill has been “an absolute dream”, according to him.
“We wanted to create not just a beautiful house to live in, but once-in-a-lifetime experiences,” he says.
Over the last eight years, his wife and three daughters have also enjoyed their home.
The girls studied at the Singapore American School, and are now continuing their education in the US.
“And they have no plans to come back,” says Agarwal.
“My wife and I have been thinking that if we intend to lock up the house and spend at least eight months a year in the US, why do we need such a big place?” Therefore, they have decided to put the property on the market for sale, and engaged KH Tan, managing director of Newsman Realty, who focuses on luxury bungalows, to handle the marketing.
The indicative price is $35 million ($2,270 psf).
“It’s very rare to have a hilltop bungalow for sale,” Tan acknow ledges.
“There hasn’t been a property with such good attributes on the market for a long time — a hilltop location, prosperous-sounding address, good design and layout, and tastefully furnished.” The owner is also willing to sell the house with the furniture for a nego tiable price.
Given that the house is in such good condition, the buyer could probably just move in with his suit cases, according to Agarwal.
“We had a wonder ful time in this house and we want to sell it to someone who can appreciate such a lifestyle,” he says.
BIG GCB PLOTS BACK IN DEMAND?
Singapore has become a magnet for the super-rich — from business magnates to celebrities — to stash some of their wealth in luxury property.
They include the likes of the family of Macau casino kingpin Stanley Ho, who paid $90 million for six penthouses, including the largest one at Marina Bay Residences in December 2006.
Actor Jet Li paid $20 million for a Good Class Bungalow (GCB) at Binjai Rise in 2009.
The following year, Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan reportedly purchased an entire floor of three condominium units at Lippo Group’s Centennia Suites with views of the Singapore River.
Despite the punitive property cooling measures that are still in place, there have been several jaw-dropping transactions in recent years.
The most recent is the 13,874 sq ft duplex penthouse at Wing Tai Holdings’ Le Nouvel Ardmore that was sold for $51 million ($3,676 psf) last month to mainland Chinese magnate Sun Tongyu, one of the co-founders of Alibaba Group and former president of Alibaba’s e-commerce site Taobao.
Malaysian Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, who is embroiled in the 1MDB saga, is said to be behind the two biggest luxury condo purchases in June 2013: a 7,718 sq ft penthouse at China Sonangol’s TwentyOne Angullia Park that went for $42.9 million ($5,560 psf), and a 2,260 sq ft unit directly below the penthouse that fetched $11.5 million ($5,099 psf).
Interest has also returned to the top end of the bungalow segment — GCBs located in gazetted areas and which have minimum sizes of 1,400 sq m or 15,070 sq ft.
KH Tan, managing director of Newsman Realty, predicts that activity could pick up in 2H2015.
He foresees more GCB transactions above $30 million this year.
The tender for the GCB at Ridout Road that sits on a 73,227 sq ft site has spurred interest among the rich for other sizeable GCB sites.
“In the last 60 days, I have up to 15 buyers looking for GCBs with land sizes above 25,000 sq ft,” says Tan.
“In the 10 years that I’ve been in the GCB market, I haven’t seen such a high level of interest before.” For instance, he is marketing a GCB on Belmont Road sitting on a 31,129 sq ft site.
He has received seven offers for the property, with prices ranging from $40 million ($1,285 psf) to $44 million ($1,413 psf).
At another GCB in the prestigious Queen Astrid Park neighbourhood, a 27,000 sq ft GCB site also drew offers of more than $1,300 psf, or above $35 million.
Tan believes $1,300 psf “is a good price” for the GCB in Ridout Road.
“A lot of high-net-worth investors have been looking for sites of at least 50,000 sq ft, and these are increasingly hard to find,” he explains.
At $1,300 psf, the GCB site in Ridout Road would be worth above $95 million.
According to sources, interest has also revived for an even larger site of 85,000 sq ft in the prestigious Nassim Road neighbourhood.
It is the site owned by Wing Tai Holdings chairman Cheung Wai Keung that was put up for sale in 2013 at an indicative price of $250 million to $300 million, or above $3,000 psf.
“Something is cooking, but whether it will be a done deal remains to be seen,” says a property watcher in the luxury bungalow segment, who declines to be named.
This article appeared in the City & Country of Issue 676 (May 11) of The Edge Singapore.
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