European House #12, Cheung Chau [????- ]

[Updated 26/11/25]

There are no historic photos of House #12 as it lies below the top of Fa Peng on the east side, and cannot be seen from the west.  It faces southeast to the sea and Lamma Island.

From modern photos it's hard to say if this was a bungalow or two storeys.   Today the site is occupied by Bethany Lodge, a holiday venue for Christian workers. The modern building is part bungalow and part two storeys.

My feeling is that the original building was a bungalow and the modern two-storey addition is a wrap-round.  

One can discern flat concrete roofs/floors common to the Cheung Chau villas and similar-sized windows to houses 13 and 14.

In the 1938 list of European owners of homes on Cheung Chau, a Mr Smyth is given as owner of House #12.  Harold Smyth, a bachelor, had worked in China and grown to love it, and after retiring to England, had returned to Hong Kong in 1932 and settled on Cheung Chau.  When the Japanese invaded in 1941, he was interned in Stanley Camp and after liberation lived in Kowloon.