Ho Tung Garden site sold by Savills Hong Kong

A cliff-top site known as the Ho Tung Garden sold last month for a record for a development site in Hong Kong. 

75 Peak Road sold at HK$5.1 billion (A$840 million), the largest deal in Hong Kong private residential market representing HK$82,258 (A$13,574) per square foot. 

Hong Kong media named the buyer as mainland tycoon Cheung Chung-kiu, chairman of listed Chinese property developer C C Land Holding, through the official buyer was listed as "Season Glitter".

The 1.15 hectare site at Victoria Park was offered through Savills International last month by the granddaughter of British-educated Hong Kong businessman Sir Robert Hotung, who built the complex in 1927. He was one of the first very successful Eurasian businessmen in colonial Hong Kong.

Sir Robert Ho Tung was the first non-European to receive permission from the Hong Kong government to reside in the Peak area. 

Its villa, known by its Cantonese name Hiu Kok Yuen, was controversially demolished in 2013. It had been on the list of 1 444 historic building in Hong Kong.

The main house of Ho Tung Gardens was designed by a local architectural practice, Palmer and Turner. Before the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Government had used the premises to house one of its military units. During the Japanese invasion in December 1941, the site received several direct hits. The house underwent renovation after the war. 

It was built in the Chinese Renaissance style, with a square tower with a Chinese tiled roof but resembling an Italianate campanile. 

The record deal for Hong Kong was brokered by Raymond Lee, CEO of Savills Greater China, and Patrick Chau, a director of residential development and investment at Savills Greater China.

Hotung's son, Robert, lived on the property between the 1960s and 1990s, and ownership passed onto granddaughter Ho Min-kwan in 2003, who unsuccessfully tried to sell it at a higher price several years ago.