Unsolved Murder & A Mysterious Fire: The Dark Story Behind An Abandoned Mansion In Penang

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The grand mansion was once known as the Caledonia House, or more popularly today as the '99-door mansion'.

It is located on the Byram Estate and has been left to rot for decades.

At the time, the Ramsden family had moved to Malaysia and reportedly set up a sugar cane plantation. However, when sugar cane prices dropped during the 1880s, they turned it into a rubber estate instead.

During the 1960s, things changed and it was converted into what is now an oil palm plantation.

He served as the managing director of the Penang Rubber Estates Group and was said to have been shot twice on the front balcony of the mansion.

Rumours claim that he was killed by a competitor, while his family believes he was murdered by Communist guerrillas. As documented on this blog, US historian Lynn Hollen Lees shared that a couple of suspects were arrested and put on trial, but the case remains unsolved.

His grave lies in the Western Road cemetery in George Town, Penang.

The mansion has around 10 rooms with five to six doors in each one, along with many more at its balcony, dance hall, and other parts of the house.

It is believed that the place may have been designed to be used as an administrative building, headquarters, or an R&R where managers could relax instead of a family home, as there appears to be no living room, dining room, or even a front door.

Rumour has it that when the house was abandoned after the 1960s, a bomoh (witch doctor) practised his dark arts there and opened the '100th door' to contact the dead. Although, as rumours go, there's no concrete proof of this. 

On 26 July 2020, the mansion mysteriously caught fire, damaging about 70% of the building. Firemen were dispatched to put it out and it was under investigation. But until today, it is uncertain how the bungalow could have caught fire. 

According to Lees, the Ramsden family had owned at least 51,000 acres of land in Malaya at the time.

In fact, they owned so much land that managers could fly between estates in small private airplanes and there was even a small airplane runway in front of the mansion!

According to The Edge, the estate's caretaker told The Star that the owner rarely visits so they locked up the fence at the entrance, to prevent outsiders from further damaging the property.

The report shows that the 54-acre land, including the mansion, was bought over in the 1970s by a businessman in Perak. However, the present owner is uncontactable.

"We have listed the building as a heritage building but since it is on private land, the owner has to agree to it," Jawi assemblyman Jason H'ng Mooi Lye revealed to The Star, as reported by The Edge.

You can't go down the main staircase, but there's another staircase on the side which you can take to view the lower level of the mansion.

Click on the photo below to head there: