Haw Par Mansion: 1930’s splendour given new lease of life as music academy

Construction began in June and Har Paw Music Farm expected to be ready by the end of next year

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Haw Par Mansion, at 15A Tai Hang Road in Causeway Bay. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 8:43pm, 12 Oct 2016Updated: 9:26pm, 12 Oct 2016

After a start-stop funding approval process that left completion of its proposed revitalisation in doubt, heritage-listed Haw Par Mansion is on track for new life as a music academy.

Roger Wu Tsan-sum, chief executive of the Haw Par Music Foundation, confirmed in April that government funding had been approved for the HK$167.3 million project.

Works can now continue on the last remaining elements of the culturally significant site in Tai Hang, as envisaged by the project’s lead architect Bing Thom, the Vancouver-based architect who passed away last week in Hong Kong.

Haw Par Mansion, its private garden and the public Tiger Balm Gardens were built in the 1930s by Hong Kong entrepreneur and philanthropist Aw Boon Haw, known as “the king of Tiger Balm”.

The public garden and an iconic seven-storey pagoda had been demolished earlier for residential redevelopment, but in 2001, then-owner Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited handed the remaining mansion and its private garden – by now awarded Grade 1 heritage status - to the government for preservation through the Revitalising Historic Buildings Through Partnership Scheme. Topping up the government funding would be public and private-sector donations.