Screen presence

Soong, 52, is a familiar face on television where he anchors a morning business news programme on CNBC. Take a peek into his luxury home. -BT 



Fri, Aug 03, 2012， The Business Times

As someone who once lived in a shoebox-sized apartment in Hong Kong - par for the course for a single working stiff in a city known for its small-scale, squeezed-in homes - and whose public persona is beamed daily to thousands of living rooms and offices via a box of a different kind, Martin Soong covets the value of a really good space.
Inside a news anchor's home

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When it was time to find a home of his own, Soong, a long-time Singapore resident, looked long and hard for a place that would somehow transport him from a typical urban existence, accommodate a love for the outdoors and also be the perfect receptacle for a prized collection of antique wooden screens. He didn't find exactly what he wanted so he built himself a house (almost) from scratch instead - on a reasonable budget to boot.
Soong, 52, is a familiar face on television where he anchors a morning business news programme on CNBC. He's used to dealing with big names, even bigger numbers and coming up with instant solutions to work-related issues. Away from the studio however, it's a different matter altogether - but not entirely. It seems meticulous research and a keen eye for detail come in pretty handy on the home front as well.
He spent a decade looking for a property among the housing estates that were built during the 1960s and 70s by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) - the predecessor of the HDB that was tasked with improving living conditions and overcrowding in Singapore homes. In particular, he became interested in estates featuring pocket-sized double-storey terrace houses, in central locations popular with young couples in search of landed properties at HDB prices.
Three years ago, Soong was looking at one such house in the Whampoa area when he noticed a nearby corner unit, more desirable due to its near-original condition. It so happened that the 84-year-old first owner of the house was willing to sell, and the deal was closed two weeks later. The house, one of 199 similar homes in the estate built around 1971, had a footprint of about just 470 square feet - compact by local standards but still generous if you've lived in Hong Kong before.
The ground floor comprised a living room, bathroom and kitchen while the upper floor had two small bedrooms - basically one square-shaped box stacked on top of another. Soong spent about a year in DIY mode, knocking down walls and converting the space into a modern-day home, yet retaining a sense of simplicity tied to the past.
Solid walls at the front and rear of the ground floor were removed and replaced by glass while the usable space beyond the back wall was extended to include a kitchen, library area and bathroom, all exposed to the open air but covered by a roof and maintaining privacy through judicious placement of walls. Upstairs, the two rooms were replaced by a single Japanese-influenced room with closet and attached bathroom.
The periphery of the house is planted with abundant greenery, features a rock garden and is enclosed by walls that partially block off neighbouring homes. Vintage wooden railway sleepers from the now-defunct Singapore-to-Malaysia train line are used to cap a wall fronting the home.
The house, which now covers about 2,000 sq ft, evokes both tranquillity and a sense of transparency. Visitors are likely to feel instantly at ease in a home where the interior and exterior spaces meld together seamlessly into a single living space. There are tasteful Asian design elements throughout - with items from Thai, Japanese and Chinese culture throughout the home. Soong has also been a longtime devotee of the Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa, whose simple, beautifully functional ideas for living in the tropics can be detected in homes throughout the region.
Soong, who declined to be photographed, designed the house with simple pleasures - and his collection of Japanese screens (or ranma, transoms above the doors from old Japanese houses) - in mind: "I wanted to use the screens as they were originally intended, hung horizontally over an opening."
The use of hanging screens and screening in general is evident throughout, creating smaller spaces and a sense of scale within an already compact space.
The house brings together an eclectic mix of items and ideas that he has been working on for years, says Soong. "I wanted a place where, from anywhere in the home there would be greenery on at least two sides, and I did everything on a fairly tight budget," he says. "I wanted to create access to green and also a sense of openness, almost as if you were in the middle of a garden. I just like to enjoy the entire space by moving to different spots around the house."
Apart from the screens, there are elegant touches such as cast bronze door handles shaped like bamboo, bronze fish that decorate an exterior wall and a section of a tree trunk that serves as both a low living room table and the first step up on the staircase to the upper floor.
On most days, Soong - who is at work by 5 each morning - is in bed by 9pm, so weekends for him mean precious recovery time. "The home environment is where I can unwind, I derive pleasure simply from experiencing the place," he says. "Some nights when I can't sleep I come downstairs and just walk around the house."
He adds: "My favourite view is sitting on the living room sofa and looking out to the Chinese room," which is not a room at all but an outdoor section (or room with no walls) that - through the use of screens - has been furnished to resemble a classical Chinese room.
"Space is the ultimate luxury," says Soong. "In practical terms, all the space that a human needs makes it very comfortable. I could just live in my bedroom - everything else is a luxury. Do I really use all the space I have? The answer is no - I just like to sit around looking at it."
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