Kheam Hock Road is among the more unique roads in Bukit Timah, extending 1.6km from Dunearn Road to Lornie Highway, which was opened in 2019. The road cuts underneath the PIE and through Bukit Brown Cemetery to Lornie Highway, which connects Upper Thomson Road to the PIE, Adam Road and Farrer Road, giving residents increased connectivity to the rest of Singapore.
For better orientation, Kheam Hock Road has Trevose / Merryn Road to its East and University Road / Jalan Bahasa to its West. The closest MRT would be Botanic Gardens, with the nearest house about a 10 minute walk away.
Kheam Hock Road was named after Tan Kheam Hock, a Penangite born into a wealthy family in 1862. He was educated at Penang Free School, a preeminent institution in its time, rivalling Singapore’s Raffles Institution. In fact, many of Singapore’s leaders studied at Penang Free School, including Wee Chong Jin, Singapore’s first Asian Chief Justice, Tan Boon Teik, Singapore’s youngest and longest serving Attorney-General (appointed at 39 years old and served from 1969 to 1992), Yeoh Ghim Seng, the longest serving Speaker of Parliament (1970 to 1988) and Ahmad Ibrahim, who served as Minister of Health and Minister of Labour from 1959 till his untimely death in 1962.
Following Tan Kheam Hock’s time at Penang Free School, he joined the Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, a British headquartered bank with operations in the Far East. He spent several years with the bank before establishing his own produce business in Kolkata, India. Years later, he returned to Singapore where he was involved in the opium and spirit trade and presumably where he made a good amount of his wealth from.
Kheam Hock was also involved in politics, having been made a member of the Municipal Commission of Singapore in 1910, where he conceptualised the Bukit Brown Cemetery. Perhaps it is therefore apt that the road leading to the cemetery is named after the very man himself.
Being a prominent businessman, Tan Kheam Hock was also a Director of many companies, including Eastern United Assurance Co. Ltd (Great Eastern today), Sime Darby, Singapore Traders Ltd amongst others. He was also an appointed Justice of Peace. He passed away at 60 after a hemorrhagic stroke, leaving behind his widow, 9 sons and 2 daughters.
Houses at Kheam Hock Road are expensive, given its prestigious location in Bukit Timah. It is on the “Dunearn Road” side, which is zoned as District 11, while houses on the “other side” with the Bukit Timah Road address are zoned as District 10. Not that it makes any difference in terms of asking price, at least to me. The homes here are largely detached and semi-D, with the former outnumbering the latter.
In line with the rest of the market, there is a growing price disparity between new built / turnkey landed homes and those that require A&A / rebuild and the recent transactions here speak to that. Aurum Land’s Anagram collection is the redevelopment of the former Kew Lodge, which was acquired by Woh Hup for $66.8m ($1,940 psf) back in 2023. This has clearly proven to be a shrewd decision given how much the units have since sold for. The houses are still under construction.
A semi-D that is part of the Anagram Homes collection was sold for $13.6m or $4,268 psf for 3,186 sqft of land in February 2025 while a detached house in the same row was sold for almost $20m for 6,265 sqft of land, or $3,192 psf.
Meanwhile, 62 Kheam Hock Road, which is arguably in a much less desirable location as it is closest house to the PIE and hence susceptible to the most road noise, was sold for $1,426 psf or $15m for 10,519 sqft of land in March 2025. Its neighbour, 60 Kheam Hock Road, was sold for a similar psf of $1,461 sqft or $10.8m for 7,394 sqft of land.
The most prominent feature along Kheam Hock Road has got to be Command House at 17 Kheam Hock Road. This majestic structure was built in the 1930s and has served as the official residence of the Speaker of Singapore and briefly for President Ong Teng Cheong. During the British Occupation, it was the official residence of the Officer Commanding of Malaya till their withdrawal in 1971. Swiss bank UBS briefly occupied Command House from 2009 as its training institute but has since vacated it in recent years. I hence had the good fortune of visiting it in 2016, while I was a first year university student as part of a 1-day insight event for its Forex, Rates & Credit business.
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Singapore Property Walkabouts 
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