105 318
PROPERTY
105
May15
I
don’t have a beautiful home,”
Eira warned me in advance. “All
we have is just a few bookcases
with walls around them. And an
amazing view.” Good thing I didn’t
take this characteristically modest
and unassuming woman at her word,
because what I find when I invite myself
to morning coffee in York Road is one of
the loveliest homes imaginable, blessed
too with a wonderful sense of place.
Dream C ome True
By Verne Maree; photographs by Ken Tan
British by passport, EIRA DAY (
née
Dyne) was born in Singapore,
as was her father Harry before her. In fact, the history of the Dynes
in Singapore goes back to 1911, when granddad Henry Richard
Lubbock Dyne came out here to join law firm Donaldson &
Burkenshaw. So it seems only fitting that Eira should finally realise
her dream – to live with her husband Simon and their sons Charlie
(15) and Max (12) in one of Singapore’s historic black-and-white
houses. Here’s the story of the family’s smart move to a slice of
colonial paradise in historic Alexandra Park.
And that famous view! The vista over
Hort Park valley to distant Kent Ridge
is phenomenal – so wide, so green, so
unspoilt, so unlike most of Singapore
that it’s hard to remember that you’re
even
in
Singapore.
Smaller British colonial houses like this
werebuilt in the late1930s andearly1940s
as part of the strategic pre-WW2 drive to
house thenewBritishArmypersonnel who
were sent to beef up the military strength
of the colony. Eira believes that her house
and the one next door, both single-level
bungalows built in the grounds of a bigger
house, were nurses’ accommodation. The
grander, two-storey houses would have
accommodated senior military personnel.
This is something that can be seen in
many of the black-and-white estates: big
house number 5, for example, clustered
with smaller houses numbered 5A, 5B
and even 5C.