BEACH HOUSE BABYLON

Property-industry veteran Victoria Allan on

building her family home in Stanley

Property-industry veteran VICTORIA ALLAN tells CHRISTOPHER DONNOLLEY about how she went about creating a family home in Stanley

VICTORIA ALLAN IS A 25 YEAR VETERAN of the property industry on both sides of the Pacific, including her native Australia, and then Canada, the United States and now Hong Kong, where she was formerly director of commercial leasing at Colliers Jardine. She launched her own company, Habitat Property, in 2001 to focus on high-end luxury sales and rentals. She describes her recent foray into home renovations, which began with the complete makeover of an older beach house in Stanley.

Tell us about the property and how you approached the project?

The property is located in Stanley and it’s a three-storey village house typical of those in the New Territories and Outlying Islands. It was originally a property that I was showing, but no one would take it. I must have shown it about 40 times — and then I decided it had so much potential I bought it myself. The more I went to the house to show it to clients, the more I realised what was possible as the view was so good from its location directly opposite the beach.

Did you design the renovations yourself or did you hire a designer? If so, how do they set their fees? How involved were you in the process?

The renovation took eight months. I worked with Alec Stuart of Alexander Stuart Design, who really saw my vision and I trusted him from the word go. I was very involved with the design process and wanted to work with someone who would take my ideas on board. Designers generally set their fees based on a percentage of the total budget.

How extensive were the renovations, especially structural changes?

It needed a complete renovation, but luckily no structural changes were required. It had tiny windows upstairs and funny windows downstairs, and the whole place was brown with a really bad spa bath on the roof. So we gutted the whole place and opened it up.

I completely swapped the house around, moving the bedrooms from the first floor to the ground floor and the living spaces and kitchen to the first floor, where the best views are I also opened up the walls of the staircase to allow the view to come into view immediately and to help further open up the space.

When we moved the kitchen to the top floor, we had to put it in a small space where a bathroom used to be. I added a window and took inspiration from yacht galleys, so it works despite being somewhat compact. It just needed to be very well designed for storage and appliances.

What were the planning requirements?

As I didn’t make any structural changes, no major planning requirements were necessary. Most things involved only internal cosmetic changes and the removal of nonstructural walls.

How do you hire skilled local tradesmen if you’re new to the area and don’t speak Cantonese?

I was really lucky to find a fabulous local contractor who speaks English and Cantonese, so for me language was never a problem.

Are there any special considerations for renovation of older properties in Hong Kong, such as weatherproofing or structural investigation?

Luckily my property didn’t have any structural or leakage issues. However we re-waterproofed the roof to protect against any future extreme weather and installed betterquality windows.

What was your design inspiration?

As the house isn’t huge, I didn’t want to over-complicate things. I was also mostly influenced by the beach and giving the house a casual, relaxed look. The inspiration was Australia, where I’m from originally, and more specifically an Australian beach house.

The idea was to keep the house relatively neutral, then you can bring in art and furniture over time, which is easy to change.

Which skills did you take from your own profession, as an estate agent and estate-agency owner, when renovating?

I see so many houses and most don’t work very well. I think seeing so many homes all the time gives you a very good perspective on space and what works and what doesn’t. I also understand clearly the most effective designs and how to best use a budget to maximise a property’s value.