By introducing natural light, elements of Bali and a lot of love, a family made their Hong Kong flat feel like home
Having been given the freedom to renovate, the tenants of a Repulse Bay apartment went all out while retaining the flat’s period features
It started as a long-distance romance. Dutch couple Sven van der Veen and Krista van Steekelenburg first laid eyes on their beloved 2,500 sq ft, ground-floor apartment in Repulse Bay from the window of a flat they were viewing high up in a nearby tower block.
“That flat was OK, but then we looked out of the window and saw this place, and said ‘that’s what we would like’,” van Steekelenburg recalls. A week later, when van der Veen spotted it in a property agent’s listings, it felt like fate.
That was 10 years, two children and a renovation ago: by the time this is published, the family of five will have moved to the Netherlands.
“Our landlady has been amazing – she cried when we told her we were leaving,” van Steekelenburg says. “Her father was the architect who designed the flat [one of six in a three-storey, post-war block], and she wanted someone who would love it.”
Nevertheless, the flat was looking pretty unloved when the couple first rented it.
“The grass was a metre high, there was mould everywhere and it was dark with tiny windows,” van Steekelenburg says. “But the landlady gave us lots of freedom and was happy for us to renovate.”