A legal battle looms as the owner of Ho Tung Gardens says she is determined to demolish her family home even as the government is set to declare it a monument.
Ho Min-kwan, the granddaughter of the late tycoon Robert Hotung, said her only wish all along had been to continue to live on the site and replace the old house with 10 new ones.
'What I ask for is to let me demolish the house and live here happily and not to disturb me,' said Ho, who is in her 70s.
She was speaking a week ahead of the expiry of the one-year provisional monument status imposed by the government last year after it was informed of her plan to demolish the main house.
In the negotiations that followed, Ho rejected a land swap offer, saying the replacement site she had been offered behind the mansion would require chopping down trees and provide less privacy.
Ho plans to replace the main house with 10 cottages - valued by her surveyors at HK$7 billion - and keep one for herself. A narrow strip of land on the other side of a stream that runs through the site - where a Chinese-style garden including a pagoda, a pavilion and a swimming pool stands - would be preserved.
She said she had not decided whether to lease or sell the other nine cottages if she pursued the redevelopment, but denied her motive was to make money.