150-Year-Old Wong Ah Fook Mansion In Johor Bahru Secretly Demolished

The owner of the land, where the 150-year-old Wong Ah Fook Mansion once stood, is believed to have demolished the building to make way for a commercial housing development.

Nearby shop owners also woke up to the sight of a large pile of rubble of the historical mansion which once belonged to well-known philanthropist and contractor Wong Ah Fook.

Odd-job worker Sheazad Ahmad, 26, who was hired by the owners to remove broken furniture from inside the mansion, said a group of men had come into the area at around 11pm on Wednesday to demolish the building. He said he was sleeping in the workers’ quarters when he was suddenly awakened by a loud noise. “I went out and saw the men were using tractors to tear down the mansion,” he added.

Former DAP deputy state chairman Norman Fernandez said that a piece of history, particularly history related to Johor Baru was gone forever. “All we can hope for is that the authorities bring into account all those responsible and mete out the strongest punishment against them,” he added.

Wong was an iconic character related to Johor Baru’s history and the main road here is named after him. Wong was born in 1837 and died in 1918 at the age of 81.

Wong, who has a road here named after him, was the chief government contractor who built some of the most recognisable heritage buildings in Johor, including Istana Besar, Balai Zaharah, the residence of the first menteri besar Datuk Jaafar Mohamed at Bukit Senyum and the Johor Baru prison in Jalan Ayer Molek.

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Youth, Sports, Culture and Heritage exco Datuk Zulkurnain Kamisan said that he was equally shocked to learn that the building had been demolished. “We are in the midst of gazetting the building and suddenly the owners decided to do this,” he said adding that the land was under the name of 12 individuals.

He said it would be difficult to take action against the owners as the building had yet to be gazetted under the Heritage Act.

Johor Baru City Council (MBJB) chief whip Datuk Yahya Jaafar said the state government had wanted to acquire the 0.44ha land and was in the planning stages to do so.

He claimed that the landowner, a Johorean living in Singapore, might have been worried that the state government would acquire the land at a price lower than the market value and thus hastily demolished the mansion in the middle of the night last Wednesday.

It is learnt the land measuring 1.1 acres could be worth RM30 million in the market.

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He added the owner, a Johorean residing in Singapore, had probably acted in haste after learning that the state government was in the process of declaring the mansion to be a historical site. "If that really happens, the owner would not be able to do anything with the land," he said.

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“The land in the Jalan Lumba Kuda area in the city centre where the mansion stood is worth a lot due to the surrounding development under Iskandar Malaysia. “That could be why the landowner was in such a hurry to tear down the mansion to develop a commercial property in its place,” he said yesterday.

Yahya said the acquisition process would usually take some time and the landowner might have been trying to take advantage of that.

Yahya said MBJB was investigating how the contractors tore down the mansion in the middle of the night. “We did not receive any application from the landowner to demolish the mansion. An application must be submitted to the local council for approval before doing so.

The owner of the land where the old mansion of Wong Ah Fook previously stood, will be slapped with a maximum fine of RM500,000 for demolishing the building without a permit.

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Johor Baru City Council's (MBJB) chief whip Datuk Yahya Jaffar said that the fine will be imposed under the Local Government Planning and Development Act 1963.

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He said that the local council had not received any application from the landowner to demolish the mansion, which was the standard procedure for landowners who wished to expand, renovate or demolish a building or house.

Historical researcher Bak Jia How, 30, was seen rummaging through the pile of debris looking for anything that could be salvaged. “The bricks were all handmade and there was no cement at the time. The bricks could have been held together using a mixture of crushed seashells and eggs,” he said. He added that the building’s architecture, design, ornaments and other elements were exquisite and more should have been done to make it a heritage building.

Earlier, community leaders from the Johor Baru Tiong Hua Association rallied together to prepare a formal appeal to the Johor Menteri Besar's office, albeit, a tad too late.

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Following the demolition of the building, the Johor Baru Chinese History and Heritage Museum chairman Tan Chai Puan said the incident had prompted a non-governmental organisation (NGO) to start making an inventory of all the historical buildings in the state, especially in Johor Baru.

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