If you fancy the European-style old castle featured in the ads of the “shams”, you must take a look at this show unit at the suburb of Victoria City — Douglas Castle in Pok Fu Lam!

Douglas Castle was a rare gem in Hong Kong.  It occupied nine and a half acres of land in the prestigious southern district, with a matchless full view of the South China Sea, and was just a stone’s throw away from the Pok Fu Lam reservoir.  As the farmland of Pok Fu Lam Village and the ranch of Dairy Farm were in the neighbourhood, you would also receive fresh organic food every morning.  Definitely an unpolluted healthy style of life.

Douglas Castle was the residence of the Scottish trader Douglas Lapraik, the owner of Douglas Lapraik & Co.  He came to Hong Kong in 1843, early when the colony was opened up, then a young man of 22.  At the beginning he worked in a watch shop at D'Aguilar Street and later founded his own clock and watch business, which made him rich.  Then came an unexpected turn in his career: he bought a coastal plot in Aberdeen and started his docking and shipping business.  The Douglas Steamship Company and The Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company he founded were the lions along the sea of China, and Douglas himself also became the Hong Kong king of the sea.  He was, to boot, one of the initial investors of the Hongkong Hotel, the most luxurious hotel in the colony.