A local couple tore down their bungalow to create a four-story, seven-bedroom house for a total cost of $4.2 million
4 min
A single-family home is the exception to the rule in high-rise Singapore, where most of the city-state’s 5.5 million residents live in apartments. So when it came time for Mark Tan and Stella Gwee to trade in their starter bungalow for something larger and grander, they decided to stay put, tear down and begin again on their rare 1/10th-acre lot.
In 2009, Tan, now 48, and Gwee, 46, paid 2.2 million Singapore dollars, or about US$1.6 million, for their original 1,500-square-foot house, located in a single-family enclave in Singapore’s North-East region. The couple then spent $2.6 million to replace the three-bedroom, semidetached structure, built in a Balinese-fusion style, with a four-story, seven-bedroom brick house that combines Asian and Western elements across 7,400 square feet.
In all, Tan and Gwee have invested just over $4.2 million in their new home. Multibedroom Singapore homes of a similar size could sell now for twice that.
The couple—Gwee works with her husband, a local entrepreneur—began demolition in 2020, relocating with their two children, Xavier, now 17, and Andrea, 13, to a nearby rental for the two years of construction. The family, along with dogs Furry and Brownie, moved into the finished house in early 2022.
The new home’s standout feature is a landscaped vertical courtyard, rising nearly 40 feet. “A lot of Singaporeans won’t sacrifice the space to build a courtyard like this,” says Tan, a Singapore native, who grew up nearby.
Enclosed by a skylight, the space is outfitted at the top with a large industrial fan 8 feet in diameter that is powerful enough to ventilate a factory floor. Made by Southern California’s MacroAir, the fan helps the family keep cool in Singapore’s year-round tropical weather. It is part of a $74,000 climate-control system that allows every room individual air-conditioning units.
The flora-rich courtyard, featuring an indoor koi pond and fronted by an open-air outdoor swimming pool, opens to the street at its base between the pool and the pond. The house can be closed off and revert entirely to air conditioning on especially hot days.
The open-plan first floor includes living and dining areas, and has space enough for a Steinway piano for music student Andrea. The second floor is given over to a mahjong room that doubles as a guest bedroom and a study. The bedrooms are on the third floor. The fourth floor serves as a penthouse recreation room for the kids and their friends.
The elevator makes for easy transitions, but Tan says his health-conscious wife takes the stairs.
Windows and terraces orient the house around the courtyard. Designing an expansive vertical courtyard was a challenge, says the couple’s architect Han Loke Kwang, principal in Singapore’s HYLA Architects, which specialises in upscale single-family projects (or landed properties, as locals call them). Immense vertical spaces like this are seen in commercial structures but are unusual in a residential setting, says Han.
The goal in the Tan-Gwee home, he says, was “to make sure the scale of the courtyard wasn’t overwhelming.”
Foliage—chosen to flourish in the courtyard’s shaded conditions and kept fresh with an elaborate irrigation system—and the koi pond help ornament the space. The pond gives the first floor a waterfront feel.
The couple spent $148,000 on the pool and pond areas. Tan filled the pond with $59,000 worth of top-dwelling adult koi, mostly imported from Japan, and several bottom-dwelling freshwater stingrays, costing $22,000.
Singapore, which is smaller than Los Angeles County, is a blending of cultures, bringing together East Asian, South Asian and European influences. The Tan-Gwee home has a decidedly cosmopolitan flair, combining Italian designer furniture, British and Canadian lighting, kitchen appliances from Germany’s Miele, and bathroom details inspired by vacations in Dubai and the Maldives.
The fortresslike facade, which preserves the privacy of the home, is in keeping with Asian residential models, says Han.
Many of Han’s clients have two kitchens—an open area for Western-style cooking and a closed-off Asian-style cooking space with wok stations, requiring extra ventilation. While finishing the house, Tan and Gwee decided to forgo the planned Asian kitchen, converting it into a kitchen terrace equipped with an $11,000 barbecue.
Back inside, the kitchen was outfitted with a steam oven, two conventional ovens of different sizes and a built-in Miele coffee machine.
These are booming times in Singapore. The city-state now has a per capita GDP of more than $91,000, higher than anywhere else in Asia and one of the world’s strongest residential markets.
Overall residential real-estate prices rose 7.5% between the second quarters of 2022 and 2023, with those of landed residences increasing by 9.4% in the same period, says Nicholas Keong, senior director of Knight Frank’s Singapore affiliate. Also, Singapore came in first in Knight Frank’s Prime Global Rental Index—far exceeding London, New York, Monaco and Tokyo—with rent prices rising 28% in 2022.
The couple seem to have exhausted their wish list. When you have everything from three ovens to a stingray budget, there isn’t much left. What about a home spa? “No sauna here,” counters Tan, who relies on the primary bedroom’s three air conditioners to maintain comfort. “It’s already too hot in Singapore.”
OTHER COSTS
Foundation and framing: $589,400
Electrical work: $148,000
Designer Lighting: $74,000
Elevator: $88,400
Kitchen (including appliances): $222,000
Bathrooms (7): 148,000
Brickwork/masonry: $222,000
Glazing, including windows and sliding glass doors: $222,000
Landscaping, including indoor plants and irrigation: $73,700
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
Rugged coastal drives and fireside drams define a slow, indulgent journey through Scotland’s far north.
A haven for hedge-fund titans and Hollywood grandees, Greenwich is one of the world’s most expensive residential enclaves, where eye-watering prices meet unapologetic grandeur.
A haven for hedge-fund titans and Hollywood grandees, Greenwich is one of the world’s most expensive residential enclaves, where eye-watering prices meet unapologetic grandeur.
4 min
Greenwich, Connecticut, is in New England (just barely), but that doesn’t mean it’s a quaint, sleepy small town with covered bridges and white churches on the green.
It’s leafy, certainly, but it’s also a luxury-minded power centre close to New York City, with many celebrity residents (director Ron Howard, singer Diana Ross, actor Meryl Streep and, at one time, Australia’s own Mel Gibson).
The main shopping street, Greenwich Avenue, is home to brand stores such as Hermès, Kate Spade, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Tiffany & Co.
And Greenwich, particularly in the “back country” north of the Merritt Parkway, is host to some of the most exclusive real estate in the world.
The average price for a single-family home in the second quarter of 2025 was USD $3.25 million (AUD $4.9 million). But that’s merely an entry point, buying a smaller home in one of the town’s less desirable neighbourhoods.
What does USD $43 million (AUD $66 million) buy in Greenwich?
Last autumn’s most expensive listing offered a 1,068-square-metre waterfront home with eight bedrooms and 11 bathrooms, plus “Gatsby-like lawns”, a gym, games room, party room, wine cellar, fruit orchard, pool and spa. The front and side porches have heated floors.
Prefer something more traditional and secluded? For USD $33 million (AUD $50 million), buyers could close on an 11,760-square-metre Georgian manor on 3.2 hectares, featuring eight fireplaces, an elevator, and a dumbwaiter.
The first floor features a three-storey cascading chandelier. For bibliophiles, there’s a two-storey mahogany library. If bocce is more your pace, a similar USD $25 million compound on 7.5 hectares, built for a liquor magnate in 2009, may appeal. Fourteen bathrooms should suffice.
The Greenwich market is strong, but not without challenges.
“The big problem is that there’s no inventory,” said Evangela Brock, an agent with Douglas Elliman. “It’s extremely low at all price points.”
In November, just 15 properties under USD $1 million (AUD $1.52 million) were listed without contracts, compared with 23 above USD $10 million (AUD $15.2 million). Of those, six had contracts pending. Greenwich has more than 17,000 single-family homes.
Kanebridge Quarterly toured two mid-priced houses in Greenwich. “You don’t lose money in Greenwich real estate,” said Beth MacGillivray, a realtor with the Higgins Group. “This is the hot spot.”
MacGillivray opened the door to a 733.9-square-metre Georgian colonial in the Sherwood Farms Association development her family built in 2005. The house was expected to sell for about USD $5 million (AUD $7,743,535).
The six-bedroom, four-level house is move-in ready, with staged furniture showing its potential and many of the amenities that buyers in this range expect.
Visitors enter through a two-storey foyer with a marble floor. A circular staircase leads to an airy living room with double-height ceilings.
There’s a main bedroom with his-and-hers bathrooms, a cherry-panelled library with cigar-smoke venting, five fireplaces, and a state-of-the-art kitchen with a breakfast nook by Greenwich-based designer Christopher Peacock.
Most rooms have huge walk-in wardrobes. Even the laundry room has granite countertops. Custom millwork, cabinetry and fixtures are evident throughout.
The drawbacks? A smaller yard and no pool. Still, refugees from the city would marvel at the abundant interior space.
Not far away, an entirely different house was on the market for USD $2.66 million.
The imposing 696.7-square-metre, nine-bedroom, seven-bath Georgian/Federal home on Shady Lane in the Glenville neighbourhood was built in 1900. Its good bones and inherent grandeur were apparent, as was a clear need for updating.
“It’s a good project for someone,” said realtor Kaori Higgins. “It needs the right buyer, someone who is looking to return it to its stately original condition.”
Given the hot market, some buyers may be tempted to tear it down and build anew.
But the house is filled with charming period details, including hand-built stone fireplaces, reading nooks, pocket doors, leaded windows and beautiful original millwork.
The second floor offers a vast veranda with views of Long Island Sound and a built-in swimming pool.
The drawbacks? Bathrooms that were awkwardly redesigned in the 1970s, unsightly flooring on the upper levels, and crumbling exterior elements.
Higgins noted that a nearby sister property, fully renovated, sold for USD $11 million (AUD $17 million). Any buyer of Shady Lane’s faded elegance would need both imagination and deep pockets.
For contrast, Kanebridge Quarterly left Greenwich for nearby Fairfield’s upscale Greenfield Hill neighbourhood to visit Lion’s Gate, a 595 square metre Tudor Revival home built as a modest dwelling in the 1920s but extensively expanded and remodelled in 2000.
With three acres of land, a guest cottage, an artist’s studio and a pool house, the asking price is USD $3.3 million (AUD $5 million). Like the Sherwood home, Lion’s Gate is flawlessly move-in ready, with designer touches throughout.
The entire second floor was added during the renovation and features parquet flooring, a massive main suite, arched doorways and 2.74-metre ceilings.
Many rooms include walk-in wardrobes, extensive carved millwork and built-ins. The wood-panelled library (on the site of the former stable) is warm and inviting.
The expansive kitchen includes a window seat with a hand-painted ceiling, a wine cooler and a butler’s pantry.
Realtor Lorelei Atwood said Fairfield faces the same inventory shortage as Greenwich.
“Demand is growing as more New York-based executives are being told they have to report to the office,” she said. “Fairfield has always been a commuter town.”
Why is this home USD $3.3 million (AUD $5 million), and the Sherwood property around USD $5 million (AUD $7,743,535)?
Location. Greenfield Hill is lovely, but Greenwich real estate occupies a rarefied class of its own.
Note: Thanks to realtor Sherri Steeneck for chaperoning.
This story appeared in the Autumn issue of Kanebridge Quarterly, which you can buy here.
