Query: Photo 2 -House on hill near Repulse Bay 1950s - Attn 88hk

Suziepie
Tue, 07/21/2015 - 11:59
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Query: Photo 2 -House on hill near Repulse Bay 1950s - Attn 88hk

Attention: 88hk 

Dear 88hk -

CLOSE UP VIEW - as you seem to have a good knowledge of buildings in HK over a long period you may know some history of this white house in photo below  As you see it stood proud by itself on a hill - very visible en route to Repulse Bay. Thank you for any light you can throw on this place - my father filmed it a few times.

Thanks,

Suziepie

Date picture taken
1952
Tags
HK early 1950s - near Repulse Bay
Author(s)
Ron Brooks
Gallery
1930s-1950s Brooks family's photos

Comments

Suziepie, it is unfortunate that 88hk is no longer posting.  In my discussions with him he was able to find numerous sources that I could not locate from conventional search engine queries.  Hopefully, I can be of some assistance, though I don't have a definite answer for you.

I don't think that house filmed by Mr. Brooks is Estrellita for a couple reasons.  First, this house is too small because Estrellita has numerous different wings that extend from the main structure and they would be visible from most any angle. 

Secondly, Estrellita's octagonal tower with the sloping Spanish roof is the tallest part of the house.  With the unidentified house pictured here, the square tower (also with a sloped Spanish roof) is much shorter than the white tower behind it, which is inconsistent with Estrellita's design. 

Thanks Compradore, looking more carefully the tower and roof don't match as you say. So back to the drawing board.

Suziepie, the stills don't come out very clearly unfortunately. We'll have a better chance of identifying the buildings & locations if we can watch the video. Any chance you can post the video to Youtube and let us know the link?

Regards, David

Even a four-minute snippet of the video from 38:02 to 42:07 would help, especially if Mr. Brooks was filming in the Repulse Bay area that entire time.  Knowing how far that hill (on the left side of the still) was from the the house would be a big clue. 

My guess is that this house was located along the beginning of Repulse Bay Road, the side that overlooks Deep Water Bay.

The difficulty is that we don't know how many more houses in the 1950s stood by themselves up on a hill.  Today there are not many houses like that, whereas I reckon there would have been a few more back then.