Image (1) above, was Ho Kom Tong's residence at 29 Conduit Road. It was built around 1900-05, and it was demolished around 1961-62. It occupied around 45,000 square feet with over fifty rooms and had fabulous panoramic views of Hong Kong Harbour. There were twenty-five bedrooms for the family, twelve sitting rooms, sixteen bathrooms, six kitchens, one main dining room which had seven round tables for meals (four for the family and three for servants), an ancestral shrine room, and eleven rooms for the servants.
The staff numbered around thirty-seven, comprising three gardeners, three cooks, twenty-five maids, two dining-room attendants, one house boy and three watchmen (one for the day shift and two for the night).
29 Conduit Road was known by his family as 'Sai-Uk', which translates as 'small house' in Cantonese. It was so named not due to its size (as it was far bigger than Kom Tong Hall), but because its main residents (his concubines) were ranked lower than his first wife.
Ho Kom Tong's first wife lived at Kom Tong Hall, known by the family as 'Dai-Uk' (the 'big house').
Sai-Uk was originally a single mansion, but as his family grew, Ho Kom Tong built two additional buildings linked by covered walkways so seamlessly integrated they blended with the main building: it felt like one continuous space.
Sai-Uk was actually Ho Kom Tong's main residence, in that it was where he spent the night, where he mainly ate his meals, and where he liked to relax. Kom Tong Hall is where he would do business and spend time with his first family.
Ho Kom Tong split his life between the two households until, in the 1930s, his leg was broken in a car crash. Thereafter, he moved permanently to Kom Tong Hall.
One of his sons, Paul (Ho Sai-Mang), said that his father enjoyed Sai-Uk because it was so lively: there were just more people, which meant it was more happening. Ho Kom Tong loved mah-jong and the clatter of mah-jong tiles could always be heard as the entire family played it: except on Sunday mornings when he liked to read his newspapers in peaceful quiet.
Sai-Uk had the advantage of being isolated with just the mountain behind it (see painting below), which meant that without the built-up sprawl typical of Hong Kong, it caught the most refreshing breezes in the summer. His children used those breezes to fly fighting kites on the rooftops of Sai-Uk. They would coat their lines with glue and fine glass shards which they would use to cut the lines of competing kites (at that time kite flying from rooftops in this part of the Island was a common pastime).
Image (2) front of 29 Conduit Rd with The Peak at the back. The palm tree on the left is on the east side.
Image (3) View from 29 Conduit Road with garden in front and neighbour across the road.
The property had much larger grounds than Kom Tong Hall, which included three split-level gardens. Ho Kom Tong was a keen horticulturalist who was known in the colony for his fabulous chrysanthemums which regularly won awards at Hong Kong's horticultural shows. He was at one point chairman of HK's Horticultural Society.
Image (4) shows the garden path with examples of Ho Kom Tong's chrysanthemums on the left. At the bottom of the path is a small guard house which was manned at all hours.
The family sold the property in the 1960s, and it was demolished shortly afterward. These photos were taken around the time of the sale.
Image (5) Although partially obscured, this photo shows the grandeur of the second building that Ho Kom Tong built on the site (to the left of the original house).
Image (6) The two photos below show the gardens of 29 Conduit Road. They were taken from the east side (left side of the house face-on) looking west, so the mansion seen at the end of the garden is a neighbouring building. To orientate yourself, use the garden photo with a tall palm tree: you will see that same tree in the painting to the left of Ho Kom Tong's house.
Image (7) Garden
Image (8) This wedding photo has been included to give an idea of the sheer size and scale of 29 Conduit Road, which may not be apparent from the other photos.
To locate where it was taken, please refer to image (1). Imagine yourself standing in front of the steps in the photo (between the two buildings in image (1)). There are four steps in front of you. Walk up those steps, and you'll find a mezzanine level at the back of which are more steps on which this wedding photo was taken.
I hope you can now better imagine the huge buildings towering either side of you.
Photos that show this Place
