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Touring Gentle Villas: District 11 Landed Living From $3 Million (Near Novena MRT)
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TJ |
Published 20 Nov 2022 |
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10min read
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BY
TJ Published 20 Nov 20222 comments | 10min read
BY TJ
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
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Imagine living with this cityscape just a few minutes walk from your main door!
Gentle Villas is a landed enclave in District 11, built by Far East in 1995, that first came to my attention during the COVID lockdown. It’s a collection of 71 houses, mostly semi-Ds, with units selling for $2million+ in 2020 and 2021. If you’ve been following this series of landed tours for a while, you’ll know there is a catch: the properties are 99-year leasehold. However, even so, at that price point, I felt that it was worth checking out, given the location and the fact that it was a semi-detached house. So off to D11 I went!
Note: however, the last 2 sales of houses in the area had risen to $3.45 million and $3.4 million (July and September 2022 respectively.) Based on sales records, during the same time period, the next cheapest properties sold in the vicinity were a semi-D at Chancery Lane for $7.5 million and a terrace house at Goldhill Place for $6.3 million. (Freehold, of course.)
Another view of your potential backyard.If you were wondering exactly how far that is from the houses, this photo was taken at the entrance of Gentle Villas (Gentle Drive) and the tall orange building in the distance is pretty much the main road (Newton Road), which is just a stone’s throw from Velocity and Novena MRT station.
The short beige building on the left is Revenue House, where you can find Singapore Customs, ACRA and IRAS. There is also Trilogic Fitness and a post office. If you turn out to the left before Revenue House, you will be brought to Thomson Road, where you can find some restaurants, such as Celine’s Gelato, Novena Steamboat Delight and Hong Kong Street Family Restaurant.
Here I am standing in the lane, looking back towards Gentle Road/Gilstead Road, with Thomson Road behind me, the Gentle Villa houses on my right and Revenue House on my left.
Unfortunately, because of the massive construction work at the (very busy) junction of Thomson Road and Newton Road, the area is kind of a mess and it’s hard to walk (efficiently) from the houses towards the shophouses or to get to the other side of Thomson Road.
Note: having said that, despite Gentle Villas being situated so close to the construction site, I couldn’t actually hear any pounding or construction noise when inside the landed enclave.
This is what one part of the walk towards Thomson Road looked like at the time of writing: as you can see, it’s blocked almost everywhere!What you see after you exit Gentle Drive and walk along Thomson Road.Across the road is Royal Square Novena, where you can find a lot of medical clinics, as well as several restaurants such as Haidilao, Fried Rice SG (not bad) and Mademoiselle Tang (which I’ve tried but wasn’t particularly impressed by.)
Royal Square Novena is connected to other malls such as Velocity and Novena Square 2. There are a lot of amenities in these malls, such as Don Don Donki, Guardian, BreadTalk, Song Fa Bak Kut Teh, Decathlon and Cold Storage.
Circling back to the other entrance/exit of Gentle Villas, which leads to Newton Road (and is where I took the photo with Revenue House on the left at the start of the tour), this is what we see.
The orange building ahead is Goldhill Plaza, where you can find several independent restaurants, such as Montero’s Sushi, Ken Japanese Restaurant and Da Luca. (It’s also where the Sri Lankan High Commission and the Embassy of Brazil are located.) A little further behind is United Square Shopping Mall, which has quite a few tuition centres and services geared towards young families, such as a pre-school, a ballet school, a taekwondo academy and more. Looking towards the right (which faces Newton Circus), this is what I see. (Mainly traffic and high-rise condos along the road.)And this is what we see looking to the left (Velocity Mall and the MRT): as you can see, it is construction hoardings everywhere which has made the area such a maze that there’s even a need for a sign to direct traffic!
However, construction won’t last forever. The closures we currently see are due to the construction of the North South Expressway, which is set to be completed in 2026. You’ll have to decide whether it’s worth it putting up with the temporary inconvenience for the central location and plethora of amenities available in the area.
Now that we’ve seen the surroundings, let’s make our way back to Gentle Villas.
Walking back from the newton Road entrance, opposite from Revenue House we find some old-school, low-rise condos. Some of the old condos are quite picturesque, such as Gentle View, shown above. Reminds me rather of an old European villa!A few steps and we’re at the entrance to the landed enclave. One thing to note is that there’s a mosque located right at the entrance, which may lead to some congestion and noise on days of worship. Close-up of the mosque.
Besides the mosque, there is also a church and a school located at the other end of Gentle Villas. Seventh-Day Adventist Chinese Church, which is behind 60 and Gentle Drive but which Gentle Villas is not directly connected to. (i.e. you will need to walk out of Gentle Villas and detour around Thomson Road to get there.) If you are noise sensitive, it would be advisable to visit the area on Fridays, Sundays and whenever the school is in session to se how comfortable you are with the situation.
Towards the left of the mosque and the entrance to Gentle Villas, it’s a continuous white line so no parking along the street is allowed for some distance (which may result in more people driving into Gentle Villas and parking there.)This is what the row of Gentle Villa houses across from the mosque look like (the mosque is on the left, right outside the boundary of the photo.) As you can see, the estate is so close to the city that we can see the skyscrapers right behind.Looking out of the landed enclave, you can see that Buckley Road is almost directly opposite. (The road is divided by a dotted white line so people can park there.) You can also reach Gentle Drive from Dunearn Road by turning into Gilstead Road, then Evelyn Road and Buckley Road, which illustrates just how well-connected the area is. (There are many ways for cars to enter and exit Gentle Villas. Despite that, the roads inside the landed area aren’t super busy.)
Along Buckley Road, at the time of writing, you could find freehold houses for sale ($12.9 million at the time of writing) as well as freehold condos such as Buckley 18 and Buckley Classique (about $3.6 million for a 1,410 sq ft unit at the time of writing, which gives you an idea of what alternatives you have in this area for the price of the Gentle Villa semi-D.) A bigger condo unit (3,563 sq ft) was going for $7.18 million FYI.
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A glimpse of Buckley Road. Back into the Gentle Villas area, there was one house being renovated when I visited. The low-rise black and white building behind should be 273 Thomson Road, which is a row of shophouses which houses several restaurants such as Sinn Ji Hainanese Chicken Rice, Novena Peranakan and more. (However, there is no shortcut to the shops there from the estate.) Taking a step back to get a bird’s eye view of the entrance into Gentle Drive. (The house being renovated is right at the end.)
One thing to note is that the units here appear to be able to park 2 cars.I believe this should be the original facade of the houses. It’s quite similar to Holland Grove View, which was also developed by Far East Organization, over at Mount Sinai.Somewhat unusually for a leasehold landed estate, there are houses that were totally re-built to maximise the plot ratio here. (FYI there are 66 of the (originally) 3-story semi-Ds and 5 2-story detached houses here. From what I saw at the time of writing, one of the detached units was asking for a rent of $22,000!)Looking down one of the interior roads of the estate.There are a lot of short cul-de-sacs within the enclave, this is a sneak peek down one of them.At the end of one of the short roads is the Gentle Drive Playground.
Gentle Drive Playground separates the bigger houses of Bukit Tunngal Road from the houses of Gentle Villa. (You can see one of the Bukit Tunggal houses in the distance in the photo below.)
From what I saw, there was no direct access for the Bukit Tunggal houses to the playground. However, the houses look big enough to house their own private playgrounds (see the red and yellow equipment to the right of the photo.)There is a space for adults to sit to watch the kids at the playground, but it looks rather desolate…There is also a small path near the playground – let’s follow it to see where it leads… It’s quite a quiet path and I wouldn’t have taken it if we were in a different country!)Some of the Bukit Tunngal houses have backdoors that open onto the “secret” path. Ah, it opens onto another cul-de-sac of Gentle Drive. But the path hasn’t ended, so let’s continue following it!Which opens onto Bukit Tunggal. Here’s a glimpse of the larger houses there for those of you who have a bigger budget.Walking back into the estate, this is the section that is furthest away from the main entrance, and also where we can find most of the Gentle Villas detached houses. Here’s a photo of one of the detached units, which looks to be at least 3x as big as the semi-Ds: from what I can tell, the detached properties all look different. To the right of this photo, there is a moveable basketball goalpost, so I’m guessing this cul-de-sac is a very quiet one. (If not, kids wouldn’t be able to play on the road.)Picture of the entire house for your reference.And a photo of 2 of the revamped semi-Ds for comparison.
From what I could see, the original semi-Ds didn’t have balconies above the car porch but quite a few units, such as the one on the above right, have rebuilt the front section to create more external space.
Something interesting about the estate is that there appears to be a pedestrian path from the estate out to Thomson Road (i.e. a shortcut.)However, for some reason, the access is now blocked by a wall, so it’s just a dead-end alley! (Well more gardening space for the houses here I guess.)As you can see, the neighbours here look to be quite keen gardeners! (I didn’t see any dengue notices when I was touring the area though, unlike some of the other landed estates I visited.)
There are 2 last things to mention: firstly, the lease started in January 1993, so there are another 70 years to go, enough to house 1 or 2 more generations. The 2nd is probably something on all parents’ minds: how about schools? Within 1 km, there is Balestier Hill Primary School (and Secondary), Anglo Chinese Primary School and St Joseph’s Institution Junior, so no lack of choices! (ACJS and SCGS are nearby but unfortunately within the 1.5km mark and not the critical 1km.) Catholic JC and a couple of specialist education centres such as San Yu Adventist School and Alliance Francaise are also less than 1km away.
Now that we’ve finished our walkabout of this small landed enclave, how did you find it? I was really impressed by how close it is to town as well as how many shops and amenities there are just a short walk away!
If there are any other areas you’d like a tour of, remember to let me know in the comments!
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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
How about a review of Toh tuck estate?