Drift Like A Ghost Along Singapore's Most Expensive Street (Nassim Road)

Nassim Road's ultrawealthy residents live in mansions known as "good class bungalows" — the most coveted type of housing in Singapore, which must have a land area of at least 15,000 square feet. "Nassim has become a brand name on its own," Bruce Lye, the cofounder and managing partner at Singapore Realtors Inc., told me. "The Nassim address itself commands a big premium." He added: "If you have the opportunity to own a piece of land there, it's something that can be passed down for generations to come." Of the handful of good class bungalows publicly listed on Nassim Road right now, the cheapest is about $45 million, and the priciest is roughly $72 million. The most expensive home ever to sell on Nassim Road was a bungalow that sold for $170 million in 2019. The rumored buyer? The Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin, who has lived in Singapore for over a decade. Saverin did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. Nassim Road's exclusivity stems from its secluded locations, its large lots, and the fact that it's a short street with a limited number of home sites. "A piece of regular land in Nassim is like fine art or wine," Lye told me in March, adding that the prices of such properties "keep reaching new highs all the time." I recently took a walk up Nassim Road, starting from where it meets Tanglin Road and Orchard Road — Singapore's famous shopping street — all the way to its end point at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Here's what I saw. After the hustle and bustle of the Orchard Road area, stepping onto Nassim Road felt like stepping into a quiet, lush garden. The road was lined with trees, which muffled the noise of the city. Toward the bottom of the road were a couple of condo buildings including this one, called Nassim Park. Current listings in the building range from a four-bedroom unit for about $9.5 million to a five-bedroom penthouse for $26 million. But the street is not all polish: I passed an abandoned building with a sign that said it used to be the Saudi Embassy. The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia is now located off Orchard Road, about a 10-minute drive away. As I continued my walk up Nassim Road, the sounds of the city faded away even further and all I heard were birds and the occasional sounds of construction. The few cars that drove by were either construction vehicles or Range Rovers, Audis, Mercedes, and Porsches. The condo buildings I saw at the bottom of the street gave way to grand homes like this gated mansion ... ... and this ultra-modern house, which belongs to Stephen Riady, the executive chairman of the real-estate company OUE. Riady paid 95 million Singapore dollars, or about $70 million, for the home — which was designed by the French architect Jean Francois Milou — in August 2019. Nassim Road is clearly a high-security area: Every home I saw was outfitted with security cameras, and that was on top of the gates and fences that surrounded most of the homes. I walked by the Russian Embassy, a stark gray, brutalist building that had signs warning that photography was forbidden. The street is also home to the Embassy of the Philippines and the Embassy of Japan. I walked by the Russian Embassy, a stark gray, brutalist building that had signs warning that photography was forbidden. The street is also home to the Embassy of the Philippines and the Embassy of Japan. About halfway up Nassim Road is the most expensive property ever sold in the prestigious area: a good class bungalow that sits on nearly 85,000 square feet of land. In the summer of 2019, it sold for 230 million Singapore dollars, or about $170 million. The seller was Cheng Wai Keung, the chairman of the property developer Wing Tai Holdings, who has an estimated net worth of $705 million. The identity of the buyer has never been made public, but rumors have floated around that it was the billionaire Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin. The old Saudi Embassy was not the only run-down building I saw on Nassim Road. Several other homes also appeared to be empty. Lye, the real-estate broker, told me that quite a few of the homes on Nassim Road were sitting empty because some buyers were "land banking," or holding the property with the intention of selling it rather than living in it. "People who own these plot of land are waiting for somebody to buy them out at whatever premium that they think the plot commands," Lye said. "People are just buying it, knowing that the value will always be there." There were, however, some active construction sites on Nassim Road where people were renovating older bungalows or building new ones. While there's no dearth of impressive homes on Nassim Road, the bulk of them are hidden from view by trees, walls, and fences. And that's certainly not by accident: Like the ultrawealthy across the globe, Singapore's rich on Nassim Road clearly covet privacy and security. Text by Katie Warren