Broadwood Road [1915- ]

Named after a distinguished army general who had an interest in horses and racing, Broadwood Road came into being in 1915, on a ridge overlooking the Happy Valley Racecourse in Hong Kong.

Architects and Builders C E Warren and Co Ltd[1] purchased a number of lots on the ridge and building began of an exclusive development with the wealthy in mind.  A few pre-existing houses[2] on the ridge, which had previously been given Leighton Hill numbers, were renumbered and incorporated into the new road.  The new colonial-style houses were typically either bungalows or two-storey villas built of brick and granite, rendered and painted white, with highly polished wooden floors within and colonnaded verandahs for coolness in summer but also, because of their elevation, security in the typhoon season.  Roofs were flat, as in most Hong Kong houses.

Architect Charles Warren, a racing enthusiast himself, liked the properties enough to own two of them.  Number 20, The Towers, was the outstanding building on the ridge.  Everyone would have known who lived there, just as they knew his horses, which were named after tiles – Ridge Tile, Mosaic Tile etc.  Charles Warren’s nickname was ‘Mr Towers’, and his mansion was a showhouse of the best that his company had to offer.  The mansion had two towers at the front and one at the rear overlooking the racecourse, very similar to number 13.

Several other owners on the ridge were also racing enthusiasts including Ellis Kadoorie, the Olsons and the Geggs.  

Unlike the other houses, the Towers did not directly overlook the Racecouse but was built to take in both sides of Broadwood Ridge; Happy Valley Racecourse and Wanchai on one side and Causeway Bay on the other, with the broad span of Kowloon and the mainland to the north.

Number 5 was another grand mansion on the ridge, but that was discreetly hidden away and facing the other way, to Causeway Bay; number 13 was unusual in that it had a tower at the rear to take in views of Causeway Bay behind the ridge.   Numbers 9 and 10 were semi-detached, as were 22/23, which were built later.  Number 21 faced south west, away from the Racecourse.  One wonders why the builder chose this aspect.  Numbers 20 and 21 were the last two houses built on the ridge by Warrens and were different in that they didn’t have verandahs.  Numbers 5 and 20 had extra land to boast immaculately kept tennis courts.

The bungalows typically had four/five rooms with kitchen, two bathrooms and servants' quarters at the rear. A 1923 auction of furniture from #13 gives us an idea of the top quality furniture these houses contained – in the dining room, teak extending dining table, teak chairs, teak sideboard, dinner wagon, teak screen; in the lounge, chesterfield couch and armchairs, engravings, oil paintings, carpets, curtains and rugs; in the bedrooms, double and single teak bedsteads, teak single and double wardrobes with bevelled mirror doors, teak dressing tables with bevelled mirrors; then generally, marble washstands with bevelled mirrors, enamel baths, chairs, tables etc and a cottage piano.  Teak furniture was often intricately carved in bird patterns, flower patterns and dragon patterns.

With the services of amahs, cooks and gardeners, life was extremely comfortable.  For many years travel from town was by tram to Causeway Bay, by rickshaw to Ventris Road, then by sedan chair up the steeper and less accessible Broadwood Road, and from the road up a zig-zag path to each house.  Even with the advent of cars, Broadwood Road long remained a single-track road, certainly up to the late 1960s.

Betty Steel, whose family lived on Broadwood Road in the 1920s, gives us a vivid picture of the abundance of flowers and plants in evidence along the road. ‘It was  a  lovely  tree-lined  road  of houses  and gardens  with  wild  violets  and  ferns  growing  in  shady places.’

In the subtropical climate of Hong Kong, with flowers blooming year-round, gardens featured azaleas in various colours, yellow Allamanda, Duranta with mauve blooms, Caesalpinia, hibiscus in several shades, spider lilies, and morning glory.

Flower beds contained zinnia, coreopsis, gaillardia, African and French marigolds, Bachelors buttons, cosmos, asters, cockscombs, petunias, salvia, and verbena.

On the hillsides grew wild flowering shrubs such as Tutcheria, Schima, Gardenia, Melastoma, Camellia, and Mussaenda.  All combined together to create a floral paradise.

The views from Broadwood ridge were superb, not only of the Racecourse and the peaks around, but also of Wanchai, the harbour and Causeway Bay.  In addition the two-storey houses and those higher up the ridge like 18, 19, 20, 22 and 23 had extensive views north towards Kowloon and the mainland. 

At night the views were equally spectacular - ‘a diamond-pointed panorama, the night sky, brilliantly studded with stars, blending into lights flashing and flickering at sea, outlining the harbour-front areas and roads winding round the hillsides’[3]; in the bay the brilliant lamps of fishing boats for attracting the fish.

The views were restored during the war as all the vegetation was stripped for firewood.  The houses were looted and stripped of all wood as well.  The best, like the Towers, were requisitioned for use by the Japanese army.  Vegetation and greenery then grew back to the point where in the 1960s only the two-storey properties offered views from their roofs.

All these houses gradually disappeared to make way for successive builds and ultimately today’s high-rise flats.  The 1980s in particular saw four high-rise developments along Broadwood Road – Beverly Hill, Villa Rocha, Villa Lotto and Broadwood Park.  These have all made the most of and continued the exclusivity of Happy Valley and its views.

[1] C.E.Warren and Co were listed as Building Contractors, Sanitary Engineers, Tile Manufacturers, Granite and Marble Merchants and Monumentalists.  Warrens built numbers 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 18, 20 and 21 Broadwood Road.

[2] Pre-existing houses seem to have been 1-3, 4–7, 11, 12, 16, 17 & 19.

[3] ‘The Yip Family of Amah Rock’ by Jill Doggett.