A Hotel with a New Life

 New Majestic Hotel

Spring@Bukit Pasoh held a guided tour on the 20 Feb 2016, a series of programme including talks, open houses, guided tours, story-telling, performances and a mass greeting. The themes vary from New Year rituals, history, traditional music, architecture, etc. And I chose one of the events - Guided tour at New Majestic Hotel instead as I had been to other associations by guided tours 4 years ago.
I arrived at the "quaint" New Majestic Hotel building located at 31-37 Bukit Pasoh Road in the afternoon. The building originally consisted of four conjoined shophouses and a restaurant which was built in 1928. It is now a boutique hotel - New Majestic Hotel under The Unlisted Collection owned by Loh Lik Peng, a lawyer-turned boutique hotelier. He bought the Majestic Hotel in Bukit Pasoh for a reported $7.2 million. And it re-opened in May 2006.

Exterior of balcony

The Aqua Rooms and Lifestyle Rooms that come with private balconies, had restored stained-glass windows, overlooking Bukit Pasoh road.

 Entrance to Hotel

In 2003, the exterior was restored to its original state, and the lobby ceiling was stripped to reveal the previous paintwork. It was reopened as a boutique hotel with 30 rooms. The restoration earned it a national Architectural Heritage award. It housed in a traditional conservation shophouses located in the heart of Chinatown, the New Majestic Hotel features an emphasis on strong design, local culture and the Arts.

 Reception Counter

Spike Design Clock

Discover tales of society and scandals as you walk down Bukit Pasoh Road. New Majestic Hotel tells a story of a fictional mistress's struggle for acceptance by higher society as the location itself ‘Bukit Pasoh Road’ was once nicknamed ‘Mistress Street”.

Majestic Restaurant signage

The walnut flooring, customized designed chairs to the one-way mirrors shaded lights from the Moooi Wear collections.

From the open concept period-inspired lobby with restored vintage Compton fans to the dramatic pool with glass inserts floating above the restaurant, to the selection of period colonial furniture from Singapore in the 1920s-1960s, New Majestic Hotel is a stunning and eclectic mix of heritage chic.

Majestic Restaurant lobby with Compton fans

This restaurant opened in January 2006 that has 90 seats and has 4 private rooms, the award-winning Majestic Restaurant continues to be a stylish destination for modern Chinese dining in the heart of historic Chinatown. It housed within the New Majestic Hotel, the Majestic Restaurant features Cantonese cuisine by internationally renowned, award-winning owner-chef Yong Bing Ngen.

An open-concept period-inspired lobby shows the imaginative possibilities of this marriage of old and new, or “heritage chic”, as the hotel calls its particular design savvy, which also takes into account its period furniture dating from the 1920s to the 1960s

 Hotel Lobby

Each of the New Majestic's 30 rooms are different, from the mix of vintage and designer furniture through to the customized baths. Room highlights include suites with private gardens, attic style rooms with loft beds in six-meter high ceilings. When you see the ruins of the hotel especially the distressed paint on the ceiling with Compton fans and vintage furnitures, you could only think raw materials of a heritage hotel.

Unfinished, hacked ceiling

An all-white open lobby with its disparate collection of Art Deco chairs and theatrical spotlights is topped by an unfinished, hacked ceiling above.

Old Barber's chair

Old Theatre seats

Antique Electric 6 Brass blade fan

There are furnishings including old dentist's chairs, barber's chair, antique electric fan and theatre seats as well as more modern items. This antique electric blade fan is made by company run by "The Emerson Electric Manufacturing Co. in St. Louis, Missouri, has been in business for 125 years. Its electric "pancake" motor that spun pie-slice-shaped brass blade.

Green Granite with marble inlay

Calligraphy is always hung up on walls and placed in auspicious positions. Some may find it unusual to have calligraphy on the floor where people are walking or stepping on it. It is inlay in white marble with Chinese calligraphic character (above picture) pronounced "man" meaning "full" in Chinese by calligraphy Tan Swie Hian (b. 1943), is a Singaporean multidisciplinary artist known for his contemporary Chinese calligraphy, chinese poetry and contemporary art sculptures found in Singapore and many parts of the world.

One of the rooms we went in - The Attic Suite "Which Way I Ought To Go" by artist Sandra Lee, is on Level 4 Rm 402.

 His and Hers vintage bathtub

There are three attic suites of which each of the rooms are approximately 44 sqm, and feature a loft with a separate living area and ladder access to a queen bed. The highlight of the room is a dual his-and-hers vintage cast-iron bathtubs, and painting mural wall

 Peek thru above grilled window

What is it like to have a "quiet" room above through the grilled window with painting of sheep on a wall - a soft queen bed.

 Ladder access to a bedroom

The ladder leads to the sleeping area on the loft above.

Queen bed with painted sheep on a mural wall

 Living hall with dentist chair

Cool sofa with fur cushion

A total of three units of the Junior Lifestyle Room measures 22 sqm, two units feature a loft, which separate the living and sleeping area, while one unit features a cozy, private outdoor area.
Next, we went to Level 2 Room 209 - Junior Lifestyle Room - Singapore Room by artists Mark Wee and James Lim, just facing the gym and swimming pool on the right.

 Behind Jerome - Rm 209

 Living area

Bedscrape with Singapore landscrapes

Vintage lounge chair

The artistic centrepiece of the dining hall is a modern brass and copper sculpture from the "Ode to Homeland" collection by one of China’s most prestigious sculptors, Cai Zhi Song, a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Cai Zhi Song's sculpture

Cai Zhi Song’s sculptures are masterpieces of modern day artistic skill combined with historical roots. His artwork using glass-fiber reinforced resin, thin sheets of metal and brass wires, he created figure that captured the viewer's imagination and achieved timeless beauty.

Colourful Glass Baubles

A sweeping staircase has an installation of colourful glass baubles suspended from above. There is a workout at the gym on the left.

A flight of steps leading to the New Majestic hotel's swimming pool with 3 glass circles portholes at the bottom, the swimming pool with portholes (glass circles) and you look down from below is the Majestic Restaurant.

Stairway to hotel lobby

Funky Trishaw

I spotted this funky trishaw outside the entrance at the corner, I remember it was inside the lobby two years ago. A young innocent boy curiously looked at the funky Trishaw as if he was unaware what was it. He will know one day when he grows up.

The guided tour ended in 30 mins and I still walked around the hotel and other associations for a while before I walked to the Outram Park Mrt just 1 min away from the hotel.