Singapore gazettes Lee Kuan Yew’s Oxley Road home as National Monument despite family objection

The historic bungalow at 38 Oxley Road, where Singapore’s founding leaders held secret meetings that shaped the nation’s path to independence, was officially declared a national monument on Friday, overriding the late Lee Kuan Yew’s stated wish for the house to be demolished.

The gazetting took effect today after Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth David Neo rejected an objection filed by Lee Hsien Yang, the younger son of the founding prime minister and current owner of the property.

The one-story pre-war house served as Lee Kuan Yew’s residence from the 1940s until his death in 2015, and, crucially, its basement dining room hosted the earliest gatherings of the People’s Action Party founders in the 1950s.

Authorities emphasized that the site’s profound historical value—as the location of pivotal discussions among Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee, Toh Chin Chye, S. Rajaratnam, and others ahead of the 1959 elections that brought self-government—outweighed personal preferences.

Preservation does not require the building to remain unchanged; future plans could range from keeping the entire structure to retaining only the basement dining room.

To honor the late leader’s concerns about privacy, the government has pledged to remove or seal off all private living areas inside the house.

Lee Hsien Yang had argued that preserving the property would contradict his father’s lifelong and unambiguous desire for demolition.

However, officials noted that the objection did not contest the site’s national importance or the independent advisory panel’s recommendation, and past records showed Lee Kuan Yew had been open to alternatives provided the building stayed habitable and family privacy was protected.

The government now intends to acquire the property to prevent any private redevelopment and will conduct detailed studies on its future treatment once access is granted.

The decision, described as being in the wider public interest, aims to let present and future generations connect with a foundational chapter of Singapore’s journey from colony to independent nation.