• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Go to Expat Living Hong Kong
Get our Newsletter

Lifestyle Guide To Moving To & Living in Singapore - Expat Living HomepageLifestyle Guide To Moving To & Living in Singapore - Expat Living

Moving to Singapore and not sure where to start? Expat Living is the essential lifestyle guide to living in Singapore.

Login Pelcro Shop

Menu
  • Living in Singapore
      • Living here
      • Neighbourhood Guides
      • Schools
      • Property
      • Work & Finance
      • For Guys
      • Environment
      • Readers’ Choice Awards
        • Moving house? Get your Wi-Fi connection right!
        • earth hour festival earth hour Singapore WWF SingaporeSwitch Off for Earth Hour by WWF Singapore
        • Lydia Ko plays golf tournament in singaporeWatch a women’s golf battle for the Team Series title!
        • real estate in united states owning property in USOwning Real Estate in the United States
      • View all
    Close
  • Things To Do
      • Things to do
      • EL Events
      • Calendar
      • Competitions
      • Noticeboard
        • Elke & man k9 empawer walkWhat’s on this week and beyond
        • St Patrick's Day 2023 - irish pubs and drinking spotsSt Patrick’s Day: Great bars to celebrate at
        • Lydia Ko plays golf tournament in singaporeWatch a women’s golf battle for the Team Series title!
        • 10 places for teenagers to hang out in Singapore
      • View all
    Close
  • Kids
      • Enrichment
      • Kids Things To Do
      • Mums & Babies
      • Schools
      • Tots & Toddlers
      • Tweens & Teens
        • 10 places for teenagers to hang out in Singapore
        • Mental health support for toddlers to teens
        • Fun obstacle course in Singapore for kids and adultsHomeTeamNS challenges you to the ultimate obstacle course!
        • education system in Singapore Astor international schoolAstor: Small Singapore school with big impact
      • View all
    Close
  • Homes
      • Home Decor
      • Readers’ Homes
      • Furniture
        • Beautiful interior design by Arete CultureNeed decorators, home stylists or interior designers?
        • Affordable art in SingaporeBuying affordable art in Singapore – it is possible!
        • Where to buy a really good bed and mattress in Singapore
        • co living Singapore coliwoo5 reasons to choose co-living in Singapore
      • View all
    Close
  • Travel
      • Asia
      • Australia & New Zealand
      • Rest Of World
      • News
      • Travel Offers
        • property in sydneyBuying property in Sydney
        • international health insurance for singapore expatsHealth insurance for Singapore expats
        • Travel News & Hotel Deals
        • Chloe from E&A InteriorsBuilding a holiday villa in Sri Lanka from start to finish!
      • View all
    Close
  • Wine & Dine
      • Asian Cuisine
      • Western Cuisine
      • Bars & Clubs
      • Groceries & Speciality Services
      • Recipes & Classes
        • St Patrick's Day 2023 - irish pubs and drinking spotsSt Patrick’s Day: Great bars to celebrate at
        • local desserts in singapore - Rainbow ice cream breadMust-try local desserts in Singapore
        • Best Restaurants in Singapore – Where to eat for foodies!
        • 3 Greek restaurants for your Mediterranean food fix!
      • View all
    Close
  • Style & Beauty
      • Fashion
      • Hair & Beauty
      • Beauty Offers
        • Niessing gold jewellery in SingaporeI discovered a 150-year-old jeweller in Singapore!
        • Boutique Fairs Singapore fairs in Singapore6 New brands at the Spring edition of Boutique Fairs Singapore!
        • hairdressers in singapore balayage and blonde highiightsBest salons for blonde highlights and balayage
        • ultherapy amaris bLook attractive with or without your face mask!
      • View all
    Close
  • Health & Fitness
      • Dental
      • Fitness
      • Medical
      • Wellness
        • Here’s why sleep is so important
        • core exercises in singapore7 Singapore Pilates studios for core exercises & more!
        • at-home personal training yoga in singaporeYoga classes in Singapore, and the benefits!
        • Here’s what inspires a top urologist in Singapore
      • View all
    Close
  • Shop
    • PRINT MAGAZINE
    • DIGITAL MAGAZINE
    • BOOKS
    • Close

Tour this black-and-white house in Alexandra Park

19th December 2017 by Expat Living 4 Min Read

https://expatliving.sg/colonial-paradise-in-singapore-tour-this-black-and-white-house-in-alexandra-park/

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.

Black and white house Alexandra Park
Outdoor area
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Outdoor area
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Eira with her husband Simon. She also lives here with their sons Charlie (15) and Max (12)
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Living Room
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Living and dining space
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Living Room
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Dining Room
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Dining Room
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Black and white house Alexandra Park
Bedroom

‘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.

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 were built in the late 1930s and early 1940s as part of the strategic pre-WW2 drive to house the new British Army personnel 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.

Eira and her four siblings grew up in Bukit Timah’s Yarwood Avenue, in a big family house with a two-and-a-half-acre garden. “So I’ve always hankered after a home with a garden, either here in Alexandra Park or in Medway Park. We’ve finally achieved that – and I’m so glad we waited for the right place to come along. It’s so peaceful and relaxing here that I feel like I’m on holiday every day.”

Flexible Space

Even these smaller black-and-whites are comparatively spacious, and those in the know are not put off by the fact that they’re advertised as having just two bedrooms. For one thing, the bedroom space in this house, for example, has been reconfigured for three bedrooms; for another, steps lead up from the back of the house to outbuildings that previously accommodated kitchen facilities and servants’ quarters, but now provide for guest bedrooms, Simon’s study and a storeroom.

What’s more, it’s usual to add on wooden decking to extend the living and entertainment area. As the previous tenants were good friends of theirs, Simon and Eira were not put off by the apparent smallness of the house after the managing agent (CBM, which took over from DTZ) had removed all the old decking and the swimming pool. They’d seen the house as it used to be, and knew they’d be able to install an even longer deck protected by a higher roof that would hugely extend the effective living space and welcome cooling breezes from across the valley.

It was worth the investment, says Eira, because the family hopes to live in this house for a long time. Their initial two-year lease can be extended biannually for a period of up to nine years – and even that seems to be flexible, she notes.

Protected by wind-, rain- and sun-filtering bamboo chick-blinds, the alfresco deck is predictably the heart of the home. As it’s provided with Wi-Fi, she and Simon are able to work out here. Simon is involved in wildlife and tourism businesses around Asia; Eira has a daycare centre in Tampines that caters for local kids.

“We even have a yoga class here a couple of times a week,” says Eira. “It’s perfect!”

Necessary Improvements

It’s difficult to tell exactly what the interior of the original house looked like; suffice to say that it’s very different from its neighbour, having been “patiently rebuilt” by the previous tenants, who lived here for 15 years.

Apparently, the house was in pretty poor condition when its previous occupiers moved in. The man of the house replaced all the roof beams, making the master bedroom, especially, more open and “barn-style”, in Eira’s words.

When Eira and Simon moved in last year, there was no air-conditioning at all – not even in the bedrooms. To have that option, and to “stop birds from flying in and shitting”, they blocked the open trelliswork above the windows with Perspex.

It’s a relatively cool house, and Eira explains that the intermittent problem of haze (smoke pollution from seasonal burning of plantations in Indonesia) is the main reason she and Simon decided in favour of air-conditioning the living room. They also glassed in the small area off the living room that is now nominally her study – “but is actually just where I keep my files”, she says.

At the back of the house is a useful scullery, a laundry area and a kitchen that’s “not huge, but big enough”. The wooden decking has been extended around the house, and a herb garden planted.

Most of the extra furniture they needed, especially for the big deck, came from Craigslist: “The two wicker chairs and the big Chinese cabinets, for example, were an absolute bargain.” Above the door leading back into the house from the deck hangs Eira’s collection of cow-bells from all over Southeast Asia – Cambodia, Indonesia and more.

Smart Move

The family condo in Amber Gardens, where the Days had been living for the 14 years before they moved in here, is now rented out. Eira liked its East Coast sea views, but not nearly as much as this one. “I still open the door every morning, look across the valley and go ‘Wow!’”

 

This story first appeared in Expat Living’s May 2015 issue.

Where should you live? Look at our neighborhood guides

 

Get some more major home envy at our Homes section.

Get the latest events, stories and special offers sent to your inbox
Get the latest events, stories and special offers sent to your inbox

Categories: Home Decor Homes Living here Living in Singapore Neighbourhood Guides Property Readers Homes Tags: Black and White Houses History Of Singapore Singaore Black-and-white Houses Singapore Black-and-white Houses Singapore Conservation Homes Singapore Heritage Homes Singapore Hort Park Singapore Houses Singapore Outdoor Furniture Singapore Settling In

Expat Living

Expat Living has everything to help you make the most of living in Singapore! We've got information on neighbourhoods, things to do and see, dining, entertainment, schools, travel, fashion, furniture, finance, health and beauty. And more!

You May Also Like

Moving house? Get your Wi-Fi connection right!

Lydia Ko plays golf tournament in singapore

Watch a women’s golf battle for the Team Series title!

A landed property in Yio Chu Kang won this family over

Primary Sidebar

  • Competitions
  • Noticeboard
  • Subscribe
  • About
  • advertise
  • Contact
  • Privacy

© 2023 Expat Living Singapore, All Rights Reserved.