It is extremely hard to find a 'For Sale' sign along affluent and star-studded Kadoorie Avenue, one of Kowloon's finest thoroughfares

EXCLUSIVE AND LUXURIOUS are the two words that come to mind at the mention of 'Kadoorie Avenue'. Lined with colonial style houses and gardens set in tree-lined lanes, Kadoorie Avenue, which takes its name from the Kadoorie family, is described by property agents as the 'number one' housing complex in Kowloon.

The area has maintained the exclusivity of its counterparts on Hong Kong Island, The Peak and Repulse Bay, mainly because of the scarcity of houses coming on to the market. While apartments and houses on The Peak and in Repulse Bay are easily available on the market, those in Kadoorie Avenue are not.

Over the years, Kadoorie Avenue has gained the same reputation as that of Beverley Hills, a place for the rich and famous, who live behind the high walls of their mansions.

Some of the people living in Kadoorie Avenue are on top of the who's who list in the Canto-pop world, including performers such as Leslie Cheung and Andy Lau as well as some of the top executives of the corporate world.

The Kadoorie family own properties covering about eight hectares of land in Kadoorie Avenue and developed the area in the early 1940s. The pioneer of the family, Sir Elly, a Jewish Iraqi immigrant from Baghdad, made his fortune in rubber after a turbulent beginning in Hong Kong and Shanghai. From the turn of the century, he diversified his holdings, buying into, among others, the company that became CLP Holdings.

Among the other family controlled businesses is the upmarket Peninsula Hotel, where guests are chauffeured around in a fleet of 14 Rolls-Royce limousines.