Have you ever seen a property ad that is in, say Holland Village, but is marked as Lorong Chuan on PropertyGuru? Well, I’ve seen, like, hundreds of such ads and always wondered why Lorong Chuan was the default address when the agent was too lazy/forgot to put in an address.
Well, it’s also one of the 2 MRT stations near Braddell Heights Estate, a landed enclave that a reader requested a tour of a few weeks back. (The other MRT station is Serangoon MRT at Nex shopping mall, FYI.)
Braddell Heights is a nice landed estate that consists of terrace houses, semi-Ds and some quite sizeable detached houses. At the time of writing, the cheapest house for sale, a corner terrace, was still asking for $5.888 million, whilst detached houses were going for up to $28 million!
Example of the terrace houses – these are mostly located towards the East of the estate, where there is also a short row of shophouses with some nice places to dine, such as Babba and Wimbly Lu. (I’ve not eaten there so, by nice, I mean they look nice and have good Google reviews and am not speaking from personal experience!)
The only thing that would make Babba look better, in my opinion, is some al fresco dining tables!This is what the row of shophouses look like. (Babba is right at the far end so not visible from here.) Where the blue truck is, there’s also a seafood shop called Dishthefish which I’ve seen pop up on my Instagram feed many times.
I visited the estate on a Sunday evening and the shophouses weren’t too busy. There were people dining in the restaurants, but it wasn’t too crowded and it wasn’t difficult to find a parking space.
Standing in front of the shophouses, this is what I see – the shophouses are surrounded by houses (mostly terraces) on all sides.Right next to the shophouses is a small playground and a basketball court. There were some teenagers playing ball games when I was there.To the right, there is a path that leads to the row of houses behind the basketball court.
(The orientation is basically: basketball court on the left of the photo, further left than that is the row of shophouses, behind the court are more houses and to the right of the photo (beyond that white fence we see, yet another row of houses!)
Oh, before I forget, the houses here are pretty close to Yang Zheng Primary School, Zhong Hua Secondary and Nanyang Junior College. They’re sort of separated by condos such as Golden Heights, Sunnydale and Maranda Gardens. So, for parents, there are several educational institutions in the vicinity! Although I’m not sure whether the traffic and noise will spillover to the landed estate when it comes to school pick-up and drop-off times.
There is also St. Gabriels’ Primary School towards the Western end of the estate, behind Chiltern Park and Chiltern Drive.
This is what the road in between the terrace units look like. As you can see, it’s not cluttered with cars parked on the roadside, despite the proximity of the restaurants/shophouses.I had to take this shot to show that the dustbins are where they would ideally be – in front of the houses, and not on the roads!View of some of the houses. You can see many are still not plot-ratio-maximised at 2 stories, with the newer builds standing out as giants.Some even look to be 1 storey!Heading towards the more expensive part of the estate i.e. where the houses become semi-Ds and detached units.As you can see the pavements here are nice and broad. It’s pretty easy to walk on, and not cluttered by pots and gardening!The land is rolling, so some houses are elevated above others. This one looks like it would be pretty nice and windy, despite being a single-storey unit!Some of the semi-Ds.There’s also a freehold cluster development with 10 units (Lynwood 8). There were no units for sale at the time of writing, but the last sale in 2021 was at $3m+.Seems like some people help themselves to the garden produce of others!
Heading out of the estate, it’s bordered by very busy roads. However, surprisingly, you can’t hear the traffic noise once inside the estate! (Even when you’re at the street closest to the main road!
Having said that, I must say that one thing about this estate is that turning out can be a bit tricky. When you turn out at Lynwood Grove, you don’t get a very good view of the oncoming traffic (and there is quite a bit of it.) Thankfully, there are several roads that lead in/out of Braddell Heights, so you can always try your luck elsewhere!
Another strata development, this time along the outside of the estate, on Braddell Road.See what I mean about the estate being located at quite a busy spot? (Besides the main road, there’s another flyover above.) FYI, there are more houses on the other side of this main road (so to the left of the photo, but not captured in the photo.)As mentioned, the land here is quite hilly, so some houses are slightly elevated above ground level and require steps to enter.This is another of the turnings in/out of the estate, at Dunsfold Drive. The car stopped there for quite a while too, so I’m not sure if it’s any easier to turn out of, compared to Lynwood.Glimpse of the houses across the main road, that I mentioned earlier. Close-up to show how busy the junction at Braddell Road can be. It’s not just one flyover, there are 2 captured in this photo!Still walking around the border of the estate – these houses are super elevated above road level (good) but I’m guessing quite noisy (not so good). The sound of the traffic was quite high on the main road, and look how these 2 houses have built what look to be barriers, I’m guessing to keep out the dust and cacophony of sounds?If you’re wondering where we are, it’s sort of opposite the Australian School (so another education institution near the estate!)The Australian International School – it covers quite a large area. Behind it is Stamford American Early Learning Village so no shortage of education institutions, local or otherwise here.Remember how I said some houses are quite a bit higher than the road level? Hope this gives you a better idea of exactly how much higher!The landscaping is quite nice!This is a cul-de-sac off the main road with some houses (Chuan Close.) A little ahead, and opposite is a green expanse, Chuan Lane Park but apparently the lights go off at 10 pm (according to Google reviews)
There’s also New Tech Park which has some nice restaurants and cafes, such as Dutch Colony Coffee, Foodies Clan and Wine Connection(the blue-ish building). From here, you can walk a few minutes to Lorong Chuan MRT.
If you don’t care for the MRT, there’s a bus stop here, where you can find Buses 73, 105 and 159.
And to your right is another school, St Gabriel’s Primary.
There’s a path that leads from the main road back into the estate.It’s quite a long path! And note the stairs in front – as mentioned previously, elevated entryways! (Or backdoors, in this instance.)We finally reach the end of the path, where there’s an outdoor gym and a shelter (not captured here.)And then you’re back into the estate, proper. This part has much larger houses!
If you want to see a video walk-through of some of the more expensive parts of the estate, click through to this YouTube video.
Example of some of the grand houses. Some under construction (quite a few actually.)This photo doesn’t show it well, but some of the roads here are quite steep! Definitely a good place for an after dinner stroll. (And I did see people walking around the estate, enjoying a peaceful and tranquil walk.)Ah captured 2 of them here! (one on the periphery of the photo, to the left.)Nice clear roads here – I had the luxury of choice when choosing where to park!I found this house design very novel and interesting!
Now that we’ve finished our tour, how did you find the area? I was pleasantly surprised! I thought it would be really rowdy (because of the large roads) but it’s really peaceful and quiet inside!
Before I go, I have to mention another thing about leaving the estate. To get from the estate to town, according to Google Maps, you need to do a U-turn, which some people may find a bit of a pain. Alternatively, you can drive through the Bidadari area to get to the highway, but it’s quite a bit longer and I can see the it getting jammed during peak hours.
If you’re curious, this is a map of what we covered – quite a large distance, as you can see!
Here’s the Master Plan of the area for those who would like to find out more. Do note that there are 2 large plots of land just South of the area. One has been zoned residential but is subject to detailed planning, whilst the other is a reserve site (i.e. there may be an increased supply of homes in this region in the future.)
Thanks for joining me on this week’s walkabout! See you again next week!
TJ’s interest in property was sparked after returning from the UK- where balconies are not counted in one’s square footage!- and finding that the Singapore property had totally changed in the 7 years she was away. When not reading and watching articles & videos about property, she is busy cooking and baking for friends, family & her blog Greedygirlgourmet
TJ
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