Grandsons of Singapore ‘rubber king’ Lee Kong Chian pay $53M for three luxury homes

One of them, Lee Shih Kwei, is in the process of acquiring a bungalow along Barker Road for SGD43.2 million. It is located on a land lot spanning 1,467 square meters, according to The Business Times.

Properties on Barker Road, Singapore. Photo by Google Maps

The bungalow sits diagonally across from Anglo-Chinese School (Barker Road) and is adjacent to four neighboring properties along Chancery Lane that are owned Kwei and his brother, Lee Shih Hua.

Hua himself recently purchased two vertically stacked units at the Seven Palms Sentosa Cove condominium for SGD23.9 million combined.

The total area is 817 square meters. The lower-floor units in the four-storey beachfront development were sold by the project developer, a unit of SC Global Developments. The development sits on land with a remaining lease of about 81 years.

A market observer said Kwei’s purchase of the Barker Road bungalow could be a strategic move, possibly driven by privacy considerations, as the site sits on higher ground than the closest of the four Chancery Road properties already owned by the two brothers. Together, those four plots span 11,100 square meters in land area.

They are the sons of Lee Seng Tee – who died in 2022 at age 99 – a noted philanthropist and the second son of pioneering businessman Lee Kong Chian, who led the merger of three banks to establish OCBC Bank in 1932.

Throughout his lifetime, Tee contributed to higher education through donations to institutions in Singapore and overseas.

His father Chian founded the Lee Rubber Company in 1931, expanding from a small Johor smokehouse into a multi-million dollar business.