04-07-2025
Singapore's most powerful family at war over decaying ‘bungalow'
T he arguments about Lee Kuan Yew's old home have wrenched apart a famous family and driven its members to the far sides of the globe, but a tour of the house itself makes it difficult to understand what the fuss is about.
The eight-bedroom building at 38 Oxley Road, where Singapore's founder lived for seven decades, is a 127-year-old colonial property, described locally as a bungalow despite its two storeys.
Its silent rooms contain half-packed boxes and rolls of bubble wrap; its narrow strip of garden is jungly and overgrown. Only the bullet-proof glass in the windows and the framed photographs on the walls serve as a reminder of who lived here: one of the great post-colonial leaders, a figure as feared as he was respected.
