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BY TJPublished 19 Apr 20251 comments | 7min 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
We’ve run a few articles on conversation houses in Singapore, from Blair Road to Balestier and Mount Emily, so by now you may be thinking they’re not that rare. They really are though: there are only around 7,200 conserved shophouses in Singapore. In the course of writing the articles, I spoke to several people who lived in shophouses about their challenges and they all mentioned similar issues: pests, termites, and often a lack of parking. Hence when I saw some Cairnhill shophouses had sheltered garage parking (as opposed to an open-air car porch), I thought they would be an interesting feature for today’s walkabout.
The Cairnhill Conservation Houses form a single line of properties in between high-rise condos, such as The Edge on Cairnhill, separated into three rows.Zooming out so you can better see their situation: despite the numerous high-rise buildings around them, the area doesn’t feel too cluttered, probably because the roads here are quite broad.Here is the Masterplan of the area. Interestingly, the Black & White houses on Scotts Road are on land that’s marked as a reserve site.
The Edge on Cairnhill is right next to the conservation properties. If you walk down this way (shown in the photo above), you’ll reach some nice restaurants and see the Black & White houses, as well as Sheraton Hotel and Newton MRT.
It’s about a 10 to 15 minutes walk from the shophouses to Newton, which is the closest MRT station, depending on which end we start at. There’s also a NTUC at Balmoral Plaza and a Cold Storage at Chancery (which are both a short walk from Newton.) However, the shophouses are really close to Orchard- and the walk is more pleasant- so that’s probably where you’ll go for your weekly shopping instead. It’s a Five to 10 minute walk from the shophouses to Paragon, which is the closest shopping centre to the shophouses.
Here’s your first look at the shophouses and their garages. Note that not all the shophouses here have these indoor garages, only the ones closer to The Edge on Cairnhill. I think this is probably due to the nature of the sloping land gradient.
One thing to note is that due to the garages, these shophouses don’t have the exact classic look that we associate with conservation shophouses.
In between the rows of shophouses is a tiny public car park, so your visitors have somewhere to park. Cairnhill Road is a major road so they can’t really park on it. However, note that there’s also Cairnhill Arts centre and Act 3 International behind the shophouses, so when performances are on, there might be quite a lot of visitors using the car park.Here’s a quick look at the public car park. (Note the sloping gradient I referred to earlier.)It looks like there is some construction going on at the moment.Here’s what the whole first row of shophouses look like. (The second row starts after the public car park and there’s a tiny third row slightly further up at the Cairnhill Road- Cairnhill Circle junction.)Right across the shophouses is The Ritz Carlton residences, so you can see how prime the area is.This is the second row of shophouses (the three rows are all along the same road but just broken up by other structures, such as the public car park.) As mentioned earlier, not all the shophouses have their own sheltered garage- the ones here, for example, do not.Thanks to the longer driveway, it may be possible to park in front of your house (albeit non-sheltered.)Another thing to note is that some of the houses have a short flight of stairs up to the front door, which may be an issue for families with the very old or very young. (I.e. people who need wheelchairs or buggies.) The higher we go on Cairnhill Road (i.e. the closer we get to Orchard), the more level the shophouses are (aka fewer steps to get to the front door.)Looking back at the two rows of shophouses (towards Scotts Road.)Some of the houses even have enough space to park two cars in front of them.Opposite this row of shophouses is Elizabeth Heights, an old dame in the condo world. According to this forum, there was an en-bloc attempt (way back in 2011) so there’s potential massive construction if it ever goes ahead. I scrolled several pages of Google but couldn’t find any other news about Elizabeth Heights going en-bloc recently. There was, however, news of the nearby Elizabeth Towers facing an en-bloc sale. (Redevelopment can be a huge inconvenience and major stress issue for nearby residents, hence my focus on it.)There are more trees in front of this row of shophouses- I wonder if the foliage in front makes the houses dark? They do help privacy and I guess the internal air wells in traditional shophouses help brighten the spaces.As shown above, for some of the houses, it’s even possible to create parking in the house (i.e. behind the gate as opposed to parking in the driveway in front of the gate.)Looking towards the third and last row of houses as well as Orchard Road.This is the end of the second row of shophouses- as shown, there are some differences between the houses. Some have windows in the roofs, some don’t, and the last house appears to be much shorter (length-wise) than the rest. We see this reflected in the transacted prices, which we’ll look at later.In between the second and third row of shophouses is Helios Residences condo, which was featured twice on our list of condos that lost the most money in 2024!Adding this photo so you can see both the second and third row of shophouses in the same shot. The shophouses appear to be next to the entry/ exit point for Helios, so the houses on this end may get quite a bit of vehicle noise during peak hours.This is the third and, as mentioned, shortest row of shophouses.As this head-on shot shows, there are only four units here, one of which is marked commercial on the masterplan. (It’s the colourful one on the left.)They’re also located at a very busy junction- just look how much traffic there is when it’s not even peak hour! Turn right at the junction and that’s how you get to Paragon and the main Orchard shopping belt.Along the way, you pass even more high-rise blocks.As well as a co-living apartment. (For more info on co-living in Singapore, click here.) You’re also very close to Mount Elizabeth Hospital.This brings us to Paragon, the closest shopping centre. There’s a CS Fresh Gold inside for your weekly shop, as well as medical clinics, restaurants, shops, and children enrichment centres. Since most of us are pretty familiar with Orchard Road, I won’t add any photos of the actual shops.Before we go, here are the last transacted prices for your reference. As you can see, prices can vary quite widely, from $7million to $18 million over a two year period! (Partly because of differing plot sizes but also because of different price PSF.)
Now that you’ve seen the area, let me know what you think in the comments!
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
Less well-known point: behind the row of diagonal public parking between the 1st & 2nd row of shophouses, there is a short driveway which leads to the back of the 4/5 houses in the 2nd row, giving these units both an additional parking lot and back door access. Part of this road can be seen on Google Maps.
Less well-known point: behind the row of diagonal public parking between the 1st & 2nd row of shophouses, there is a short driveway which leads to the back of the 4/5 houses in the 2nd row, giving these units both an additional parking lot and back door access. Part of this road can be seen on Google Maps.