House of Tan Yeok Nee, Singapore

House of Tan Yeok Nee (10 July 2006)


House of Tan Yeok Nee (GPS: 1.29875, 103.84334), formerly the Old Salvation Army Headquarters, is regarded the one of the four grand mansions of 19th Century Singapore. It is the biggest, and today, the only such mansion still standing. Tan Yeok Nee's mansion occupies 2000 square meters of land on Clemenceau Avenue, where it meets Penang Road. The mansion has been carefully restored in keeping to its original design, while at the same time, contemporary facilities are incorporated to make it suitable for modern usage.

House of Tan Yeok Nee is a Teochew-style mansion. The structure exhibits the balance of Ying and Yang, and the five elements of gold, wood, water, fire and earth. Tan Yeok Nee is a Chaozhou-born businessman. He built the mansion in 1885. Arriving penniless in Singapore, he rose to great wealth though engagement in different trades including textile, pepper, spices, and even in the then legal opium and liquor trades.

House of Tan Yeok Nee is just one of two surviving Chinese mansions in Singapore; the other is River House at Clarke Quay. Tan Yeok Nee lived for most of his life in this house. He outlived all his sons, and so when he died, the house passed down to his eight grandsons.

At the turn of the 20th Century, when the Singapore-Johor Bahru railway line was being built, the house was acquired by the Tank Road Station Master. Then the house passed to the Anglican church in 1912, which used it as a Home for Eurasian girls. The Salvation Army had the longest use of the house, as its headquarters from 28 May 1938 until 1991, when the Salvation Army moved its headquarters to Bishan. The latest owner is the Wing Tai Group, which spent S$1.2 million to restore it, and now it is occupied by the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business as its Asian campus.

Address

House of Tan Yeok Nee
101 Penang Road,
Singapore 238466

How to go to the House of Tan Yeok Nee by MRT

The nearest MRT Station is the Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station served by the Circle Line, North East Line and North-South Line.

House of Tan Yeok Nee is on the map of Historic Buildings in Singapore

Further Reading

For another Teochew-style mansion in Singapore, check out the Nanyang Sacred Union, which occupies the Teochew-syle mansion of Seah Song Seah.
House of Tan Yeok Nee (10 July 2006)

The House of Tan Yeok Nee Singapore on Google Street View

The House of Tan Yeok Nee Singapore

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About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.