Residents in several buildings on the lower end of Praia Grande edging Sai Van lake woke up one morning to an official government notice. The announcement: their buildings are to be given a facelift. That is to say that the scruffy, peeling external walls are to be cleaned up and given a couple of coats of fresh new paint.
What good news this is! Not only for the inhabitants and those tourists looking down from Macau Tower or who enjoy little tours around the lake in hired bicycle rickshaws, but for Macau as a whole.
These old buildings and the scenic banyan tree-lined bay are steeped in history and must be treasured and looked after. The Bela Vista, sitting since 1870 a little up the hill, is the grand old dame of the area, and tends to get most maintenance attention with annual repainting. With mixed fortunes this stunning colonial structure has been a home, a hotel, a charity, a hotel again, a school, and a refugee centre for a number of Portuguese residents of Shanghai fleeing the Japanese invasion of China. Many old Macau and Hong Kong hands today will remember it fondly as a hotel under the Excelsior Hotels management in the 90’s. It finally closed as a hotel on March 31, 1999, and, fittingly, was taken over by the Portuguese Consul when Macau was handed back to China in December 1999.
Dai Heng Dai Ha, (‘Happy Mansion’) understood to be the first residential building built by Stanley Ho in the Sai Van Praia Grande area over 50 years ago, is a U-shaped 7-storey structure with a central courtyard fronting the lake. Scaffolding is due up any minute, and in a few weeks a lovely buttercup yellow with white trim promises to be revealed.
Then there are other famous old low-rise buildings on either side; Man Tak, Kam Tou, Fu Keng, Baia, Meng Chu Kuok, and the Tenis Civil. The 8-storey building whose ground floor houses the famous Henri’s Galley and Ali’s Curry House restaurants, where alfresco dining on long warm evenings draws many families, has just been unwrapped from its scaffolding and now gleams bright white with red trim.
At the far end of this southern tip of the peninsular stands the one and only UNESCO heritage-listed hotel in Macau, the Pousada de São Tiago. The immediate surrounds are looking a tad forlorn these days with some massive light rail-transportation hub building works going on below, but I have high hopes that the end result will look lovely; calcada tiles for sure, and more shady banyans.
Let’s give warm applause to the Macau government for playing their part in preserving one of Macau’s loveliest areas.
