Mention the building ‘Dai Heng Dai Ha’ to any taxi driver in Macau and they’ll know instantly where you mean. Even with the poorest of Chinese accents, it’s just one of those buildings that seems to have become etched into the memory of most locals. What is it about this place, one wonders? Perhaps it’s because as teenagers, locals remember strolling hand-in-hand on a cool evening with a loved one along the lake in front of Dai Heng, or more recently sitting on one of the lake-side benches to enjoy the best vantage point for watching fireworks displays.
Or perhaps it goes back even further to when Macau’s one-time patriarch Stanley Ho decided to build this seven-storey homestead, a first foray into residential development in the area for him, it is said.
Some time back in 2005, one of the apartments in Dai Heng was purchased by Althea Pike, a British property investor who found it in a very sorry state. Having been used as a staff boarding house, it had a myriad of little rooms, bunk beds, damp and peeling paint and a weird configuration of bathrooms. An ugly cramped kitchen was located at the back with a squat toilet next door.
But Althea saw potential in the place given its size, and set about giving it a total make-over. Flipping the kitchen from back to front, to be incorporated into the living area, this interesting renovation has brought the apartment into the 21st century and made it an extremely desirable home with at times a waitlist of tenants wanting to move in.
Althea explains that her design theme from the start was to mix ultra modern materials with antique Asian furnishings. Cheap linoleum floors were done away with and a coloured concrete laid throughout – predominantly grey with hints of black and pale sandy orange to bring in the colour theme of the rocky hillside that runs behind the whole building. The old kitchen became the guest room and ensuite bathroom, and because it was at the side of the building looking into another building, frosted glass panels were used for some of the windows.
One and a half bedrooms were combined into a sizeable master bedroom and ensuite bathroom. To bring in as much light as possible and to make best use of the hillside view, the windows were enlarged to as big as they could structurally be. The crowning glory to this room is the silk ceiling-to-floor curtains in honeydew melon, a colour Althea chose to complement the sandy orange of the hill.
The master bedroom has a walk-in dressing room hidden behind a concealed door.
“I generally like to keep wardrobe space hidden,” explains Althea, “unless a cabinet is beautiful enough to be made a feature of”.
But in the guest room there’s an old wardrobe from Denmark, and the piece-de-resistance is the huge Chinese antique cabinet in the living room, that had to be brought in through the windows by crane.
“That piece I found in the store rooms of the Repulse Bay Hotel in Hong Kong. No longer fitting their current renovation theme, I bought it, and its sister which is in another apartment. It weighs a ton and is here to stay, there’s absolutely no moving it!” laughs Althea.
With the kitchen now taking up the space of one of the bedrooms, an area for a third bedroom had to be found.
“The moment one reduces the number of bedrooms in a property,” says Althea, “the value diminishes, no matter how spectacular a renovation, so it was vital we added a third bedroom-cum-study, however small”. So she converted the space that was the old dining area. “At first I thought to build it all in glass to give a sense of light, modernity and spatial perspective, but as a bedroom this wouldn’t give sufficient privacy. So we built a room with one brick wall, and the other longer wall is Japanese-style sliding doors. Beautiful teak with opaque glass panels that cost a bomb!”
The ‘Z’-shaped kitchen is the focal point of the apartment. A creamy marble countertop with veins of palest orange, it was designed to have all the appliances built in for a sleek modern look.
Walls throughout the apartment are white with a slight gloss to them to accentuate as much natural light as possible. Two striking art pieces ‘A Conversation’, by Hong Kong based artist Brian Tilbrook, hang opposite each other, and another Tilbrook in the dining room, was commissioned to yet again reflect the hillside.
Both bathrooms are tiled in an Italian range of tile that looks like natural stone.
“I love these tiles, I bought them from Eur-Idea in Areia Preta, which has a great selection, I always find interesting tiles there, but sadly these particular ones are now out of stock”. Bathroom accessories are purchased direct from the manufacturers in China, “as the good quality European designs are expensive here in Macau and even crazier in Hong Kong!” Althea exclaims.
Dai Heng, literally translated as “Happy Mansion” is a U-shaped building with a courtyard in the middle, somewhat akin to the traditional courtyard houses in the hutong neighbourhoods in old parts of Beijing. Through the entrance archway is the banyan tree-lined Praia Grande and the West lake. Althea designed oversized sliding windows with white stone window seats in the living area to make best use of the tree and lake views.
“Everyone we’ve had staying in this apartment have said how happy they’ve been here, so I guess the name of the building couldn’t be more perfect”, smiles Althea.