Stamford House is a historic building located at the corner of the junction of Stamford Road and Hill Street, in the Downtown Core of Singapore. Originally known as Oranje Building (sometimes spelled Oranjie), it formerly housed a shopping mall. The building had since redeveloped along with adjoined Capitol Building and both were reopened as a hotel The Capitol Kempinski Hotel Singapore in October 2018.
History
The building was designed by Regent Alfred John Bidwell (1869–1918) of Swan & Maclaren in 1904 for the Armenian firm of Stephens, Paul & Company. The bottom two floors were leased to retail firm Whiteaway Laidlaw & Co.
1900-1960: The Hotel
Because of a shortage of hotel rooms, Raffles Hotel took over the top two floors of the Building in 1911 as an annexe for two years, calling this Raffles Lodge. The Oranje Building was renovated in 1920 by Arathoon Sarkies in the will to transform the building into a high-end hotel. In 1921, the Grosvenor was opened in the Oranje Building on 1 August 1921 with 50 rooms and the same menu as Raffles. An early advertisement specified “special rate for Families, Planters, and Miners and Members of the Civil Service”. The Grosvenor was closed in August 1926 and its furniture was auctioned off. The rooms were renovated and renamed Stamford Hotel and Restaurant in September 1926. It was then reinstated the name: the Grosvenor and managed by Hoseb Arathoon. In 1933-1934, Seth Paul's daughter Klara Van Hien took the hotel out of Hoseb's hands and renamed it Oranje Hotel. In December 1941, a number of survivors of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse were first housed in the Oranje Hotel.
During the Japanese Occupation, the building continued to be used by the Japanese forces as a hotel. After World War II, the hotel rooms were rented out and ground floor of the building used as shops.
1960-1980: The Stamford House
In 1963, the building changed hands and was sold to Basco Enterprises Private Limited. It refurbished the building and renamed the building as Stamford House. Together with the adjacent Shaws Building, which housed the Capitol Theatre, the Stamford House was once a main shopping centre in Singapore.
The upper two layer of the building was a modern and comfortable air-conditioned office-block, occupied by internationally known organisations. Basco Enterprises’ Bobby-O Department Store, which mainly sold electronic equipment and jewellery, was opened in the building likely in the 1970s and remained there until the 1980s.
1980-2000: Conservation
In 1984, the Stamford House, together with the Shaws Building, was acquired by the Urban Redevelopment Authority, which imposed planning restrictions to preserve the building. In May 1991, a decision was made to forgo preserving the similarly rustic four-storey Eu Court and conserve Stamford House instead as the latter had more potential for commercial purposes. Later the same year, Stamford House underwent extensive conservation and restoration works.
Despite protests by the public, Eu Court was demolished in 1992 for road widening with the aim of easing future traffic congestion on Hill Street. Today, a new building, Stamford Court, is sited on a portion of the site of the former Eu Court building.
The S$13 million conservation project for Stamford House was undertaken by the main contractor Batae Engineering, and took three years. The Stamford House was re-opened as a furniture and furnishings centre on 28 March 1995. The shopping mall has a rentable space of 3,350 square metres (36,000 square feet) over three floors, and was managed by Pidemco Land (now CapitaLand).
2000-Presence: Redevelopment
In 2008, Stamford House, along with its stretch of adjoining buildings including Capitol Building, Capitol Theatre and Capitol Centre, were offered to potential developers as a single integrated site for commercial redevelopment.
In 2010, a consortium formed by Pua Seck Guan’s Perennial Real Estate and Chesham Properties won a bid to restore Stamford House, Capitol Theatre and Capitol Building into a hotel, shops, residences, and a theatre.
Grant Associates worked closely with the project's lead architect, Richard Meir and Partners Architects, the project consist of Singapore's largest cinema cum theatre complex, a 6 stars luxury hotel and a shopping mall, with a total size of 21,000 m. In November 2011, Shimizu Corporation was awarded the redevelopment project to develop into a large scale mixed use complex called "Capitol Development". There was a shopping component named Capitol Piazza and also a residential component, named Eden Residences Capitol, which were on the site or the demolished Capitol Centre.