No_2_January_and_February__1950 — Page 19

ન

AC

DAYING

LAWN

Коф

402 SEVERN ROAD

اصير

PANTRY

View of the building from the top of the approach road.

Davanteki

Dimana ke

HALL

GULAT 2.

MASTER BED

SITTING

hoov

1

!!

DRIVE way

and

It is now several years since a group of starved and subdued Europeans wended their way from the internment and prisoner-of-war camps into the desolated village that was Hong Kong and gazed with shocked awe at the wrecks and ruins which were all that vandalism and neglect had left of their homes.

Faced with the task of rebuilding, many of the proprietors, as long as walls were standing, were content to restore the structures to their former slate. This was all right in the case of buildings that had been fairly new, but it was a pity that in a great many instances such rehabilitation work simply resulted in the resuscitation and prolongation of the ugliness and inconveniences of a past age.

Many owners, however, took advantage of their misfortune and decided that if they had to spend good money on rebuild- ing they might as well make a job of it and, while utilizing as much as possible of the original building, partly for the sake of economy and partly because of sentiment, rebuilt along modern lines incorporating that standard of living which one expects in present day residences.

Among the list of this latter type of rehabilitation work is the home of Mr. H, Owen-Hughes, whose house on 402 Severn Road was recently completely reconstructed and now ranks amongst the finest of private residences in the Colony.

The house was originally built in 1915 by Mr. Dennison of the old firm of Dennison, Ram & Gibbs, who also built the adjoining house for his daughter, Lady Shenton. A few years later he sold it to the Russo-Asiatic Bank, from whom it was purchased by the Owen-Hughes family in 1927. Since it was built originally of teak windows with Chinese tile roof of wooden members it was completely looted during the Japanese occupation and thus necessitated its complete rebuilding.

Originally a pitched roof bungalow with a basement, it was completely looted during the Japanese occupation with only the bare walls, steel trusses and few roof tiles remaining.

T

H

Abovej Present ground floor plan

(below) pre-war plan.

Faniry

M.CH

MALL

STUDY

I AM

++ 1

Aw

17

TH

Note the steps

(Above) The entranceway on the south side. leading to the upper flat, and left plans of the present arrangement as compared with the previous layout.