No 32, Northam Road, George Town

Northam Road stretches along the north coast of Penang Island running west from George Town. It was tree-lined and was where the 19th Century colonial administrators lived. After they left for more leafy suburbs in the early 20th Century it became home to the mansions of self-made Chinese tycoons.

No 32 was the elegant building the home of Leong Yin Khean, the third son of the Chinese Hakka magnet Leong Fee from Guangdong. Leong Fee had moved to Ipoh where he became a wealthy from tin mines. He sent Yin Khean to Cambridge.

In Europe, Leong Yin Khean fell in love with everything Italian and in 1926 commissioned architects Stark and McNeill to build an Italianate villa. It included furniture manufactured in Bangkok to Italian design, marble floors and a Venetian window.

It fell into disrepair but in the late 90s was restored by local business men and has been made into a swanky restaurant. Here is the entrance hall.