The Hong Kong flat that showcases a shopaholic's treasure trove
Harold Ho can't help buying stuff that catches his eye, and after 20 years of accumulating treasure, he's found a home for some of it in a 2,100 sq ft Mid-Levels apartment, writes Jane Steer
In a warehouse somewhere in Kowloon is an Aladdin’s Cave with Harold Ho Wai-leung’s name on it. It is stuffed with treasures unearthed at markets and in antique shops and furniture stores in Paris, Rome and New York, over the past 20 years.
“I couldn’t help myself. I kept shopping and bringing things back to Hong Kong and putting them in storage ‘for my future home’,” says Ho, waggling his fingers into quotation marks.
In August, he finally moved into that home, a 2,100 sq ft apartment in Mid-Levels that he shares with his financier partner. It was a chance to rediscover some items from his hoard: perfectly worn leather armchairs (“the cushions were a bit saggy so I had to replace them”), a vintage gym horse, an antique glass dome, a French chandelier and an ionic capital – the scrolled top of an ionic column – from Rome that now serves as a bedside table.
Against snowy-white lacquer walls and teak floors, the vintage pieces look like gallery items, and sit comfortably beside the contemporary marble-block coffee table from the interior design arm of Ho’s long-established fashion manufacturing firm, Forest Fortune.
“I like new things, but I’m getting more into antiques as I get older – I like things that will last,” he says.
The exquisitely crafted floor encapsulates Ho’s love for old and new: the untreated teak blocks have been sanded to suede-like perfection and laid in an unusual pattern inspired by one of Ho’s shopping trips.
“I went to Japan and saw this pattern in an antique shop, so I took photographs and asked a supplier to come up with a sample for me. If the floor and walls look good, everything looks good,” Ho says.