Lee Kuan Yew’s Home Turned Into National Monument

Fight over disposition severely fractures Singapore family

By: Toh Han Shih

In a saga marked by what appears to be the irreparable fracture of founding leader Lee Kuan Yew’s family, the Singapore government has announced its intention to preserve the house of the revered former prime minister as a national monument, the denouement of a Singaporean version of a Greek tragedy. Lee’s children and grandchildren remain at loggerheads, members of the clan fleeing abroad amid sanctions and defamation suits, and Lee’s neurologist daughter having died at 69 of a brain disorder without reconciling with her eldest brother.

On November 4, Lee’s younger son Hsien Yang, 68, in exile in the UK despite a successful career as a businessman and former Army brigadier-general, posted on Facebook a photograph of the gate of his father’s house, with notices by the National Heritage Board (NHB), indicating the government’s intent to convert the house to a national monument despite the elder Lee’s oft stated wish to have it demolished to prevent it from becoming a shrine to his memory.

The controversy erupted after Lee Kuan Yew died in March 2015 amid national mourning. The first shot was fired on July 14, 2017, when Hsien Yang and his sister Wei Ling issued a statement accusing their elder brother, then-Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, now 73, of misrepresenting their father’s wishes. Hsien Yang and Wei Ling alleged Hsien Loong and his wife Ho Ching opposed Lee senior’s wish to demolish the house, as its preservation would enhance Hsien Loong’s “political capital.” Hsien Loong, who stepped down as prime minister last year, has denied his siblings’ accusations.

Hsien Yang, the sole owner of the house, apparently lost when Singapore’s National Heritage Board (NHB) announced the government’s intention to preserve the house as a national monument in a press release on November 3. The NHB assessed the house at 38 Oxley Road “to be of historic significance and national importance. Singapore Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth David Neo has accepted NHB’s recommendation and intends to gazette the site as a national monument.

“The Government will consider all options…such as partial or full demolition of the buildings and structures… Regardless of the option taken, the Government will respect Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s wishes, and will remove all traces of Mr Lee’s and his family’s private living spaces from the buildings,” said NHB’s press release.

The site, an architectural jewel of which only an estimated 16 have been conserved, cannot be redeveloped for residential, commercial or other private uses, NHB added. “All private living spaces will be removed to respect Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s wishes for privacy.”

“As for Lee Kuan Yew, it’s not about privacy, it’s about not wanting any monuments,” a Singaporean lawyer who declined to be named told Asia Sentinel.

Hsien Loong, now senior minister, has recused himself from the Singapore government’s decision on the house since 2017, his press secretary said in a statement.

In a Facebook post later on November 3, Hsien Yang said, “The PAP Government has chosen to trample on Lee Kuan Yew’s unwavering wish to demolish his private house. He regarded his whole house as private and wanted it demolished in its entirety. The order to gazette 38 Oxley Road as a national monument effectively rejects the demolition application.”

“The Founders Memorial is already a huge and expensive monument. Lee Kuan Yew was opposed to monuments. The PAP disrespects Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy and values by choosing to gazette 38 Oxley Road as a monument,” he added.

The People’s Action Party (PAP), which Lee Kuan Yew co-founded, has ruled Singapore since 1959. The NHB argued the house deserves to be preserved because some of the PAP’s founders held meetings there. The Founders’ Memorial, in tribute to Lee Kuan Yew and other founding fathers of the nation, is expected to open by 2029 and estimated to cost US$256 million.

Singaporeans can honor the memory of Lee Kuan Yew at the Founders’ Memorial instead of his former home, said a Singaporean who declined to be named. “If the decision is to preserve the house at 38 Oxley Road, it will be highly disrespectful of Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his wife for ignoring their wish not to have their house as a public museum.”

Unhappy family

In October 2024, the British government granted asylum status to Hsien Yang and his wife Lim Suet Fern. Hsien Yang had shown the BBC some documents including a letter stating his claim for asylum was successful. The letter stated the UK government had given him “refugee status” for five years as it accepted that he had the “well-founded fear of persecution and therefore cannot return to (his) country.”

The Singapore government has denied these claims and said Hsien Yang is free to return.

In November 2020, a committee of three Singapore judges suspended Suet Fern, a corporate lawyer, from practice for 15 months after finding her guilty of misconduct over the handling of Lee Kuan Yew’s last will. Suet Fern is currently practicing as a lawyer in the UK.

The matter of the will claimed another casualty, Kwa Kim Li, a niece of Lee Kuan Yew’s wife Kwa Geok Choo. In May 2023, Kwa Kim Li, a former lawyer of Lee Kuan Yew, was ordered to pay S$13,000 (US$10,000) in penalties over misconduct over her uncle-in-law’s wills. A report by a disciplinary tribunal found she failed to “scrupulously safeguard” the late Lee’s confidentiality while handling his will and misled Hsien Yang and Wei Ling, the administrators of their father’s will. Kwa Kim Li remains managing partner of Lee and Lee, a Singaporean law firm founded in 1955 by Lee Kuan Yew, his wife, and his brother Dennis Lee Kim Yew.

The late Lee’s will stipulated that his house be demolished as soon as possible after the death of his daughter Wei Ling, who lived there. She died in the house on October 9, 2024 of a brain disorder. Her mother died in the same house on October 2, 2010. The late Wei Ling, said to have inherited her father’s pugnacious streak, called her elder brother a “dishonorable son.” Hsien Loong has refrained from suing his siblings for libel, as is customary for Singaporean ministers, saying it would dishonor the memory of his parents.

In 2020, Li Shengwu, the eldest son Hsien Yang, and Suet Fern agreed to pay the Singapore authorities a fine of S$15,000 plus S$16,000 in costs for contempt of court, without admitting guilt. He was found guilty over a private Facebook post he made in 2017, in which he shared a link to a New York Times editorial titled Censored In Singapore, with a description saying: “Keep in mind, of course, that the Singapore government is very litigious and has a pliant court system.”

Shengwu is no longer Facebook friends with Li Hongyi, a son of Hsien Loong, and Ho Ching. Wei Ling and Hsien Yang have accused Hsien Loong and Ho Ching of having political designs for Hongyi. Hsien Loong has denied this, and Hongyi said he has no interest in politics.

Shengwu is now a professor of economics at Harvard University, which would have made his late grandfather, who placed much value on academic achievement, proud. While Lee Kuan Yew was alive, a narrative was carefully crafted depicting his three children as well-behaved, academically accomplished and successful in their careers, in harmony with each other and their parents under the Confucian ethos which Lee senior espoused. The disputes among the elder Lee’s children as well as the fates of Hsien Yang, Suet Fern, Kwa Kim Li, and Shengwu have tainted that image.

Toh Han Shih is a Singaporean writer in Hong Kong and a regular contributor to Asia Sentinel.