Let there be light

 

		Wed, Nov 10, 2010 The Business Times
Let there be light

Brian and Jude Kow have created a three-storey modern tropical home, and then some.

Wed, Nov 10, 2010
The Business Times

By Corinne Kerk

INTERMEDIATE terrace homes tend to suffer from a poor reputation for being long, narrow and dark abodes, and a challenge to bring light into.

Many owners of such homes have got around the problem with skylights, courtyards and a tall, glass frontage. But few, one imagines, would have managed to transform them the way Brian and Jude Kow have.

From a typical, two-storey intermediate terrace in its original condition (read: 40 years old) with a built-up space of 2,200 sq ft, the couple have created a three-storey 5,400 sq ft modern tropical home, and then some.

The tropical resort home in the middle of Kembangan Click on thumbnail to view

There is a lot more than meets the eye in this property, which sits on a long, thin strip of land measuring 2,500 sq ft.

Apart from packing in seven bedrooms, a pond, lazy pool, lap pool, gym and movie room, several contrasting styles can be found in this house that somehow manages to blend a tropical resort theme with lots of bling to create what they call 'tropical glam'.

And all this was done over a year-and-a-half, on a challenging terrain, which made rebuilding costlier and more painstaking.

But then again, Brian and Jude aren't your everyday homeowners - they have the advantage of being well-versed in the art of tearing down houses and rebuilding them as owners of design and building firm, Nic & Wes.

Brian, a former money broker, started dabbling in rebuilding by working on his own homes many years back.

'We got scrap materials and made our interiors nice,' he recalls. 'It was something we both enjoyed doing. So we slowly bought our own properties, developing and staying in them.'

Convinced that there was a market for their work, Brian left the financial industry in 1995 and spent the next three years running a few businesses to gain entrepreneurial experience before finally starting Nic & Wes Builders - named after their children, Nicole, now 24 and Wesley, now 21, in 1998.

'Our first deal came after my son, who was then 11, went around with me throwing our flyers in the Siglap area,' says Brian.

Thanks to those flyers, his first clients - who happened to live in a pair of terrace houses next to each other - came to know of his services. Then came several houses in the vicinity and the business took off, with most clients coming to the Kows by word of mouth.

They eventually found their niche in tearing down and rebuilding landed homes, although they also do other work, including interior decorating.

Looking at their portfolio, what is evident is their ability to think out of the box to create spacious homes in space-starved Singapore.

And that, is also exactly what they've done for their own home in the Kembangan area near Siglap.

As it turns out, Brian, who purchased the property the moment he set his eyes upon it two years ago, had the same idea about what to do with it as did his wife.

'When we saw the land, we saw the potential for a basement that is not enclosed,' he says.

With his wife's favourite travel destination - Bali - in mind, Brian set about planning the house. The couple decided the main structure for the house would sit on the front part of the land. This leaves the back half of the land - which slopes downwards - open. Into this space, they built a pool and bar. Then right at the back of the property, they built a two-storey structure. The final product is a three-storey home through which a steady breeze flows.

At the basement level is the lap pool, flanked by Nicole's room at the front end and the master bedroom at the back. On the street level is the main entrance with the living and dining areas and compact wet and dry kitchens. Past the kitchen, there is a walkway overlooking the pool that leads to the grandparents' and maid's spacious rooms.

One floor up, and on the front building, you will find Wesley's room, a movie room complete with a mini stage and a gym. Across the walkway is a mini guest room and a roof-top garden that is made welcoming with a gazebo and garden furniture.

'People with a balcony or rooftop terrace often find it under-utilised because they don't do it up nicely,' explains Brian. 'But if you make it conducive to chilling-out, then you will want to go out there and use it.'

When it comes to the interiors, it is Jude who lends her touch to everything. She shipped in two containers of furniture, furnishings, lightings and accessories from Bali, and sent them straight into her new home, filling almost every nook and cranny with a strong tropical flavour.

'We like to do things with a twist,' says Jude, who is meticulous about details. 'We didn't want a typical Balinese look, but a modern, contemporary house with the bling and tropical touch right through, except in Nicole's room.'

Indeed, the presence of bling is all over the house. Many items, such as the telephone, coffee table and even bathroom ceiling light are decorated with glittery diamante. On top of that, different rooms in the home have different themes.

The master bedroom has a Balinese-style entrance and a sitting area overlooking the pool to create the feel of a private villa. Instead of letting the high ceiling in the bedroom go to waste, Jude had a walk-in loft wardrobe built in. And some wardrobe it is - apart from shelves upon shelves of neatly organised, colour-coded clothes, there is a separate area with glass cabinets displaying all her accessories and bling, not unlike what you'd see in a boutique.

Nicole's room - which has a French theme and is filled with baroque furniture - opens up to a lazy pool (small pool with jets) which leads to the lap pool. Wesley's room, on the other hand, carries a modern oriental theme.

'We are not the kind of family that just comes home, eats and sleeps. We like to enjoy our home, and that's why it is designed such that we have a landed property with all the facilities of a condominium,' says Brian. 'With a bit of forethought, you can customise every part of the house so it becomes a place you want to run to, not run away from.'

This article was first published in The Business Times.