View from the peak on Wan Chai and Causeway Bay

Mon, 05/11/2015 - 00:05

This one was shot quite likely from the same spot as the others in this series. Unfortunately, its a bit too bright.

Clear visible right hand side on the slope there is a brownish/reddish building, this is Altadena House (finished 1974) at 27, Barker Road. Behind that is Cragside Mansion at 23, Barker Road. In front of Altadena is a a two-storey building with a flag. Below is a detail from the 1980 picture, and below that one is a detail from a 2014 picture. The house in front is a new one, these are Richmond Houses at 31, Barker Road.

I have no idea what the small building of the 1980 photo is. Any idea for the identification of this one?

Date picture taken

24 Aug 1980

Comments

I think you're right that the

I think you're right that the building with the flagpole is at 31, Barker Road. The driveway sweeping up is shown on maps and in the oldest photo.

It isn't the current Richmond House (http://gwulo.com/node/14301), and it isn't the oldest Richmond House (http://gwulo.com/node/14300), so there must have been an extra generation of building there we didn't know about. I've made a new Place for it: http://gwulo.com/node/24636

Regards, David

Thank you David. Parallel to

Thank you David. Parallel to your investigation on my photo I made a new entry with the detail of these buildings ( http://gwulo.com/atom/20965) that were already in this post, but not saved as an "atom". I also used your new places entries and added them to atom/20965.

Thanks Klaus. 31 Barker Road

Thanks, Klaus. That is a great picture of 31 Barker Road and I have never seen this house in such detail until I saw your post.

The design of the house looks similar to Shell's Belvedere on Plantation Road. The long structure that connected to the house (rightmost side of the picture) would almost certainly be the servants' quarters. I wonder if the garage was located there also, as it was with Belvedere.

It seems there is another structure on the lot that is a small and square shape, with the roof visible above the servants' wing. Any ideas what it is?

Richmond House was sold in the late-'90s, if I recall correctly. I think it was post-'98 Asian Financial Crisis. In the late-1960s and 1970s, the general manager of the Union Insurance Society of Canton Limited resided in the house, although I don't know if the company actually owned it and if it was the eventual seller of the property.

Move of comments

David, to help other people with this discussion it might be convenient to move all our comments to "31 Barker Road (2nd generation Richmond House?) [????-????]". If you aggree, I would amend my entries http://gwulo.com/atom/20960 and http://gwulo.com/atom/20965. Then 20960 would only be Wan Chai from the Peak, and 20965 would include all the "Richmond House stuff".

Regards, Klaus

re: Move of comments

Hi Klaus,

My rule-of-thumb is that if I'm talking about the photo, eg "what's that building?", I write on the photo's page, but if I'm writing about the building I write on the page for that Place.

Theer's a mix of both here, but I've copied Compradore's comments about the building to its page.