Look inside a Singapore supermarket billionaire's $50 million mansion, which combines a historic bungalow with an ultra-modern house and has a 100-foot swimming pool
Katie Warren  Â
- Singapore billionaire Lim Hock Leng lives in a $50 million historic bungalow combined with a modern mansion.
- Lim, who co-owns Singapore's 3rd-largest supermarket chain with his two brothers, has amassed a fortune of $1.2 billion with his brothers.
- The mansion features a swimming pool that starts indoors and extends outside.
On a secluded, leafy street in Singapore, supermarket billionaire Lim Hock Leng lives in a $50 million bungalow.
Lim is the co-owner and managing director of Singapore's third-largest supermarket chain, Sheng Siong, which operates more than 60 stores in the city-state.
Lim's older brother, Lim Hock Chee, is Sheng Siong's CEO, while the eldest brother, Lim Hock Eng, is executive chairman. Together, the three brothers own a majority stake in the company, putting their combined net worth at $1.2 billion, according to Forbes.
Lim's home is a "good class bungalow," Singapore's most rare and coveted type of real estate.
The city-state has a limited number of good class bungalows, making them a status symbol reserved for the ultra-wealthy.
The design of Lim's home combines a historic Singapore bungalow with an ultra-modern home.
"From the front, it looks very unassuming," one local real-estate agent, who has visited the home and wished to remain anonymous, told Insider. "But if you look from the back it's a monstrous house that towers over the whole neighborhood."
The back of the home shows off the modern addition that was designed as "as a series of stepped terraces with green roofs," according to the architecture firm.
Singapore-based architecture firm Ta.le Architects oversaw the restoration of the colonial bungalow and designed the new bungalow.
Lim paid 35 million Singapore dollars - or about $26.2 million - for the land and the historic colonial bungalow in 2015, a spokesperson for his company confirmed to Insider.
The executive then spent roughly SG$30 million ($22.4 million) to restore the bungalow and build the attached modern bungalow, which was completed in 2018, the spokesperson said.
That brings Lim's total investment in the property to nearly $50 million.
The architecture firm, Ta.le Architects, dubbed the finished property "Hidden House."
Source: Ta.le Architects
The home has three courtyards, one of which features a grassy lawn and sits between the historic bungalow and the modern bungalow.
Source: Ta.le Architects
Another courtyard separates the living room and the dining room of the new bungalow and brings light and air into the center of the house.
Source: Ta.le Architects
The third courtyard on the lowest level of the home is where you'll find the 98-foot swimming pool, which extends from indoors to outside of the house.
Above the pool is a staircase designed to "glow in the night," according to the architects.
Indeed, the entire rear facade of the home does appear to glow at nighttime.
Source: Ta.le Architects
Rather than going for pure opulence, the architects said they designed the home to create a "minimalistic luxurious experience."
Source: Ta.le Architects
Last month, Lim gave a tour of his home to the South China Morning Post and told the publication that he shares his home with different generations of his family.
Source: South China Morning Post
The architects therefore designed large bedrooms - almost like independent apartments - to accommodate Lim's four children and his parents.
Source: Ta.le Architects
The bungalow's formal dining area can accommodate at least 15 people.
Source: Ta.le Architects
Many of the home's common areas appear to open up to the grassy terraces.
Source: Ta.le Architects
Photos of the home show lavish marble bathrooms. There's also a massive walk-in closet.
Source: Ta.le Architects
The spacious office seems appropriate for the managing director of a major supermarket group.
Source: Ta.le Architects
The home's amenities include a fitness center, a sauna and squash court, a pool table, and a home theater with 14 seats.
Source: Ta.le Architects
When he set out to build the house, Lim said he told the architects, "'You are building this house for my neighbors, not me.'"
"When you build a house, that house has to become scenery for your neighbors," Lim told the Post during the tour.
Lim told the Post that he considers spending so much money on a house to be a bit "extravagant."
But for Lim, the cost was justified. His father always wanted the whole family to live together but couldn't afford a large enough home, Lim said, so he sees the house as realizing his father's dream.
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