European House #16, Cheung Chau [1908-????]

[Updated 12/11/25]

This house appears to have been one of those built in the early 20th century when Cheung Chau was found to have desirable qualities similar to The Peak for holiday villas, and building plots and labour were cheap.

Going by the photographic evidence, the villa was a bungalow, built of granite close to the top of Fa Peng, with a flat reinforced concrete roof, south-west facing with a domestics' cottage/annex at the rear.  

It looks to have been built as one of six early in 1908, and in July of that year, its owner, Rev Julius A Kempf, was in residence when a terrible typhoon occurred which destroyed three other missionary houses, but left his and two others standing. 'All the people who were in the house had to put up a brave fight to keep the windows and doors closed.'

Rev Kempf was one of several missionaries with the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, serving in China, who had villas on Cheung Chau.

In a Mission photo taken in 1911, Rev Kempf's house is marked as House 5, which would seem to be more where House 15 was.

In its history of House 2, the Bradbury Retreat Centre tells us that Rev Kempf, along with his colleagues, took refuge in their villas during the unrest of the Xinhai Revolution on the mainland in 1911-12. 

In 1938 the owner of House 16 is given as Mr J A Kempf, who would appear to be the same person as above. 

1941 - Rev Kempf and his wife missed the Japanese invasion as they had 'returned to Tak Hing on the mainland before the war broke out; but they had goods stored in Hong Kong and all their savings were in banks there. They learned that their cabin on Cheung Chau had been looted, the woodwork, doors and windows taken for fuel.'

Today the plot appears to be empty.

Source: The Reformed Presbyterian Mission in South China.