detached/semi-detached category
• joint Gold award
• green home award

Location } Section 7, Petaling Jaya, Selangor
Architect } Ar. Dr. Tan Loke Mun of Archicentre Sdn Bhd

All good things take time — just ask Anthony Leong and his wife Wong Yun Cheng. Ten years ago, the couple bought an old bungalow in a leafy section of Petaling Jaya. With its lattice collapsible gates, stained-glass windows and Oriental art deco timber work, it was love at first sight for the couple. But because they were preoccupied with building another home at the time, the bungalow was left empty until about four years ago when, with Dr Tan Loke Mun of ArchiCentre Sdn Bhd, the couple embarked on not just renovating the ageing bungalow but also adding a new wing to it.

If at a glance the bungalow and adjoining two-storey villa — with a combined built-up of 5,500 sq ft — seem rather large for Leong and his wife, it’s because they’ve been designed for future generations. “We built the new wing in anticipation of the family growing, with our son marrying and living here with his family … they can live in the bungalow and we will stay in the villa,” Leong explains.

In the event this does not pan out — their son Edward has just graduated while daughter Vicki is still at university — then Wong reckons they could use the old wing as a guesthouse instead.

And which guest wouldn’t revel in spending a few nights in this charming section of the property. With its stained-glass windows, ornamental ironwork on the window grills and ventilation blocks and terrazzo flooring, the bungalow — the old wing — has a nostalgic charm about it. Even the car porch with the single-width driveway and the ubiquitous planter box is reminiscent of the houses of the early and mid-20th century. All that is missing is a vintage car in the porch that incidentally no longer serves its original intent but is now a chill-out spot by the new swimming pool.

What’s especially appealing about this wing is that much of the original bungalow — from the roof and floor tiles to the metalwork, doors and windows — have been recyled and reused.


Leong and his wife were specific in that they wanted to retain the original bungalow as it was and were glad that the architect felt the same way.

“Dr Tan understood the concept that we were going for and he too felt strongly that we should reuse what was already in the bungalow,” says Leong. Beyond reusing the roof and floor tiles as well as the metalwork, Tan also committed to reusing the original spaces of the house. This respectful -- and certainly environment-friendly — treatment is the reason why this house was recognised in the inaugural Green Home category of this year’s instalment of the Haven My Dream Home Contest. On top of that, the key design elements of the house, such as the courtyard, maximise cross-ventilation and natural light.

While retaining the original materials and spaces over a significant part of the bungalow, Tan removed the kitchen, which had in fact been a timber shed. In its place, the architect created a kitchen that’s more in keeping with the more contemporary section of the property. Given that in most homes the kitchen is really the heart of the house, it’s no coincidence that here, the kitchen is the bridge between the old and new wings. The kitchen overlooks the courtyard that also serves as a link between the two wings of the house. The courtyard has a calming effect on the property, accentuated by a water feature whose soothing sounds permeate very nearly the whole house.

Walk through the kitchen and you’ll find yourself in the new wing — a 2-storey self-contained villa that houses a very large dining room (for family dinners) and a living room on the ground floor, and a series of interconnected spaces on the first floor. With only a spacious master bedroom, a master bathroom and two smaller spaces just off the bedroom and bathroom respectively, the entire top floor is one luxurious empty nest for Leong and his wife.

And “luxurious” describes the master bathroom aptly — finished entirely in black, save for the bathtub and vanity top, the bathroom gets an extra touch of opulence and drama from a chandelier in the centre of the space. Ventilation blocks and a screen door now ensure privacy, but eventually bamboo reeds to be grown in the planter box beside the bathtub will do the job.

As it is located in a leafy section of PJ, the house is surrounded by greenery — a fact best appreciated from the first floor of the villa. The villa itself boasts a lot of plants along its boundary, so that if you took the stairs, you get a beautiful view from the windows overlooking the side elevation of the building. 

While Leong and his wife have yet to decide if they will move into the house soon, their pride in their home is palpable. The wait to restore and augment the house they bought a decade ago appears to have been well worth it.

This article appeared in haven, Issue #44, August + September 2010, the deco and garden publication of The Edge Malaysia