Is Singapore’s ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ palace really worth US$3.5 billion?

In the heart of Singapore, there is a sprawling, vacant plot of private land 30 times the size of The White House.

Just down the road from the United States embassy and bordering condos worth S$4.5 million (US$3.3 million) each, the swathe of untended jungle hides the remains of two abandoned palaces and would be worth a cool US$3.5 billion if sold for development, according to one estimate. In a city where almost 8,000 people are crammed into each square kilometre and real estate prices are among the world’s highest, it is one of the greatest urban anachronisms in Asia.

“Owning a piece of land in Singapore is certainly a privilege as land is the most precious resource in the city state,” said Christine Li, a senior director and head of research for Singapore at Cushman & Wakefield Inc. “Over the past five decades, land prices have appreciated significantly. This has fuelled wealth creation for older generations. Many also aspire to own a landed property as it is a status symbol for the well-heeled.”

If something about this story sounds familiar, it’s probably because the plot line was borrowed by Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians, the book about Asia’s insanely rich that was made into a hit movie last year. The fictitious Young family inhabits a sprawling ancestral home, set within Singapore’s Tyersall Park.

In the real-life version, the 34-year-old Crown Prince of Johor, Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim, is the registered owner of the 210,875-square-metre plot, which lies in the former Tyersall Park, next to the Botanic Gardens. Inside, ravaged by fire and decay, are the ruins of Istana Woodneuk, the palace built by his ancestors in the late 19th century.

The plot owned by the sultans of Johor was once larger, but has gradually reduced as the Singapore government acquired land to extend the Botanic Gardens, a Unesco World Heritage Site. In 1990, the state bought a chunk for S$25 million and it got another 98,000-square-metre piece in 2009 for an undisclosed amount.

Malaysia has a constitutional monarchy, where the national throne rotates between rulers of the country’s nine states every five years. The southern state of Johor is ruled by the Crown prince’s father, Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar.