(Dec 12): Singapore will preserve the site where the home of founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew stands as a national monument after a lengthy dispute among his children over its fate.
The site at 38 Oxley Road was gazetted on Friday due to its “historic significance and national importance”, the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth said in a statement. The decision had taken into consideration an objection from Lee Hsien Yang, Lee’s youngest son.
The property has been at the centre of the family feud since Lee passed away in 2015. Hsien Yang and his sister Wei Ling had accused their eldest brother, former prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, of attempting to undermine their father’s orders to destroy the house. The spat resurfaced last year after Hsien Yang’s application to demolish the colonial-era house was blocked following the death of Wei Ling.
Preserving the site doesn’t mean keeping the building and structures in their current form, the ministry said. The government is committed to removing private living spaces in line with the late premier’s wishes and will study the site when it has access.
The site at the fringe of the city’s Orchard Road shopping belt “bore witness to pivotal events in the 1950s that marked Singapore’s transition from a colony to an independent nation,” according to the statement.
The government said it intends to acquire 38 Oxley Road and convert it into a public space.
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“Lee Kuan Yew was misled to believe that 38 Oxley Road had already been gazetted,” Hsien Yang wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. “It has taken more than 13 years for the gazette to finally be promulgated.”
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