Hong Kong couple’s growing art collection finds a home in Southside house

For homeowners Michelle and Charles Wan, who first worked with Jason Caroline Design 12 years ago, employing the firm a third time made sense on a practical level: having architects already familiar with what they owned saved time and money.

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“We had chosen most of the furniture together during the previous two renovations, so it had sentimental value,” says Caroline Ma, who worked with husband Jason Yung on those occasions. “Our goal was to keep almost everything they already owned.”

The design team had first transformed an apartment in Mid-Levels for the Wans in 2003. Five years later, Ma and Yung helped turn that apartment into a 6,000 sq ft duplex after the Wans purchased the unit below. Then, 2½ years ago, the couple contacted Ma and Yung again, this time to help refit a three-level house.

Having bought a new property, the Wans kept what they could, including the marble flooring, although two bathrooms were sacrificed to enlarge adjoining rooms – the kitchen and, one level above, the study/movie room, which was previously one of four bedrooms. On the top floor, now a master suite, a room was converted into hisand- hers dressing areas and a pantry installed near the stairs, “so you don’t have to go down for water”, Michelle Wan says.

The couple’s new Southside abode may be smaller than their previous place but, at 3,500 square feet, with a 1,200 sq ft outdoor area, it more than adequately accommodates the two of them, their now-grown, United States-based sons when they are in Hong Kong and their growing collection of art. So many pieces hang beside the screened staircase threading its way through the house that going up and down the steps is as engaging as visiting a gallery.