Bruce Lee home addresses or locations of interest

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 05/24/2007 - 23:51

Hello I will be in HK on June 1-3 and was a huge bruce lee fan. I read on the internet, his home address 41 Cumberland Lane ( not sure which area), was made a hotel. Can anyone please give me precise location of his house, his parent's house in HK??? Silly question but is there a bruce lee museum in HK also? Thanks Anthony

You had better get and see it soon. The owner - wealthy philanthropist Yu Pang Lin - is going to sell it to raise funds for the SiChuan Earthquake disaster. A worthy cause. Who knows what it will become once it is sold. Standard article here:

http://www.hkstandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=66172&sid=19033305&con_type=3

Edit: Since this link was posted (original 2009, updated 2019) HK Standard has moved domains and also got rid of its archive feature, so many old articles, including this one, are no longer available.

 

Hi Philk,

The piece of news in your link was dated May 22, 2008.... 

I remember I read something earlier in Ming Pao about the same house that the landlord and the Government came up with an agreement to turn the house into a Bruce Lee Museum.  Also the house would be restored to what it used to look like back in the early 1970's.

Best Regards,

T

yes, T, you are correct.

This thread has popped up again because I was updating a link, that no longer worked, at the request of admin.

The latest on the house is that the Govt are soliciting people from around the world to submit plans for the site's redevelopment. Seems they want ideas about how to expand the space without annoying the neighbours!!

This article appears in today's (October 7, 2019) SCMP, highlights are:

Demolition of Bruce Lee's former mansion in Kowloon Tong was completed on September 28, 2019.

Proposals to renovate it into a museum honouring Lee have been ruled out due to high cost (HK$20 million), and structural problems a key factor.

Plans are underway for a new building offering courses on Mandarin and music; estimated construction completion date is August 2020.

The mansion backs onto the railway.  Directly on the other (west) side, in the early 1960s, there was a small wooden shed where a young man guarded his crops.  The area then was part forest and farms and exceptionally quiet before they developed Yau Yat Chuen.  I befriended the man when I "walked" my pet bird there from Boundary Street.  I also rode my bike on his back lane.  This was the closest I have ever gotten near Lee.  Regards,  Peter   

Hi Oldtimer,

I remember seeing lots of Pyrostegia venusta 炮仗花 in the back lane when I walked home from Kowloon Tong School kindergarten to Boundary St. in the 1950s. It was quite common in HK at that time but seems to be quite rare nowadays.

Do you remember seeing any in his back lane at that time?

PDRM0176.JPG
PDRM0176.JPG, by tkjho
There was a large playground called 九龍塘公園 (Kowloon Tong Park, probably called something else in English) either on Boundary St. or on Waterloo Road. Do you remember exactly where it was?

Hi tkjho,  I remember seeing these flowers in some backyards while riding my bike, and your Chinese name for the flowers rings a bell.   They bloom for a short period each year so your photo brings back memory of those pass-by glimpse.

I have heard about Kowloon Tong Park, but never visited or played there.  The 1956 map does not show any park in the area.  However, on the west side of Waterloo Road and between Suffolk Rd and Norfolk Rd, there was the St. George College, whereas the 1952 map shows this area as unsettled.  I wonder if this spot was at one time a park.  Regards,  Peter

there's a 1965 map that shows several green areas within the Kowloon Tong estate, most of which are still around: Cornwall Street children's playground, Kent Road garden, Dorsett Crescent garden, Rutland Quadrant children's playground and the Essex crescent rest garden. There is a green patch where the Kowloon Tong club now stands, perhaps that could be it?

With regards to the flower, it still occurs estensively in some of the alleyways around Kent Road. Very fragrant. 

Hi Philk,

Thanks for the info. That may be the location as I remember it to be at least as large as a football field. As for the flower, I don't think I've seen it anywhere else in HK outside of Kowloon Tong.

According to this wiki, there were three of them.

https://baike.baidu.hk/item/李小龍故居/18658751

1. 218 Nathan road, first floor

This was his parents' home.

He spent his youth here until the late 1950s. He returned here in 1963 and 1965 and stayed briefly. 1965 was the year his father died.

2.  Sunlight Garden, 2 Man Wan Rd, Ho Man Tin

He moved in here sept 1971 and stayed for 10 months

3. 41 Cumberland road

1972-7-29 till 1973-7-20 when he died

 

5 Mau Lam Street, Yau Ma Tei, Bruce Lee's Home in Babyhood
Bruce Lee was born on 27 November 1940 in San Francisco's Chinatown. Lee and his parents returned to Hong Kong when he was three months old. The 2nd floor in 5 Mau Lam Street was their first place for settlement. They moved to Katherine Building (2/F, 218 Nathan Road) in 1941.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=505848222925019&set=a.446980718811…

I know I too am responding to a rather old post & thread, but just FYI, if you go to www.youtube.com and search on "Bruce Lee House Hong Kong" you will get numerous videos of the exterior and even some videos where someone snuck-inside the house.

 

 Short story time: I'd only been living in Hong Kong for a few months in 1974, and unfortunately, at about 10 years of age, I was definitely a gweilo.  That changed one day when I decided to bully a skinny little Chinese kid, but quickly found myself laying flat on my back, wondering what happend!  I learned the hard-way, but the best, fastest way for me, that martial arts was the real-deal and I needed to behave (at-least towards Chinese people) while roaming the streets of HK!