Current condition
Demolished / No longer exists
Date completed
In 1890 "Cloudlands" a one storey bungalow, was bought by HSBC.
In 1910 it was purpose rebuilt into a two storey residence for HSBC bachelors.
In 1957 it was demolished and completly rebuilt.
In 1986 it was rebuilt again.
In 1998 it was rebuilt yet again.
Photos that show this Place
1886
1889
Comments
Inside the World's Most
Inside the World's Most Profitable Bank
By EDWARD A. GARGAN
Published: August 21, 1994
... Roughly 700 applicants vie for about a dozen spots each year. And until this summer, all those chosen came to Hong Kong to learn the craft of banking. They started their five years of training living on Hong Kong's Peak in a barracks-like compound called Cloudlands, because it is often shrouded in mist. Typically, the international officers moved around Asia every year or so after that.
"The mess is where the I.O. culture and network starts," says Jacqueline Gilhooley, who at 25 is one of only 12 women who have trained as international officers since 1989, when the all-male tradition was dropped.
HSBC: The culture that powers HongkongBank
Euromoney February 1997
Today Cloudlands is a building site. A residential complex is being constructed in its stead that will house senior bank employees. It will incorporate a large number of family flats, seven town houses, two four-bedroom houses and a 25-metre swimming pool. And the training of the bank's young cadre of IOs has moved from the lush heights of Hong Kong to a sometimes chilly English manor house in St Albans called Bricket Wood.
...Turner was one of Cloudlands' last occupants. He recalls its last mess Christmas party in 1983. Senior bank executives were there, and the 20 or so occupants gave the old building its last rites in fitting fashion. They hired 30 Gurkhas from the Hong Kong defence force to play the bagpipes.
IOS GIVE HSBC GLOBAL REACH
Section: BUSINESS, Page: E2
Date: Sunday, July 4, 1999
The first IOs were Victorian adventurers sent to head HongkongBank's Oriental outposts, answering directly to the bank chairman. All the early IOs were British men who lived in bank-owned lodgings, eating off silverware and crockery with the bank logo. Single officers, when posted in Hong Kong, lived at the since-demolished Cloudlands boarding house, or mess, in the exclusive Peak neighborhood. The mess always served curry on Thursday.
``Curry on Thursdays'' became such an enduring image that it was even used by opponents of HSBC's 1992 takeover of Midland Bank Plc of the U.K. ``We kept hearing, `They'll make you eat curry on Thursdays,' '' said Edwin Green, HSBC's archivist.
Cloudlands is listed in the
Cloudlands is listed in the 1886 rate book, so it's completion date can go back a few years earlier from the current 1890.
Cloudlands and the 1889 rainstorm
The "Report on Great Storm of the 29th and 30th May, 1889" (see Forum entry here) refers the following:
I have already alluded to the very serious damage which occurred on the morning of the 29th May to the service tank and filter beds of the Tytam Water-works, situated at C. on plan. On further investigation the cause was obvious:
Excavations on a large scale were carried on during the last year in preparing a site for a house on the summit of the ridge above the service tank (at D. on plan, Rural Building Lot No. 7.). A. large portion of the debris was deposited on a very steep slope immediately below the house. On the morning of the 29th (I am informed at 11.40 A.M.) a great mass of this spoil bank; amounting at the lowest estimate to 10,000 tons, became detached and was precipitated down the ravine.
Not a perfect start for a new building!