Posted by Nam Koo Terrace is a red-brick mansion built between 1915 and 1921 at 55 Ship Street, in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district. It is said that during the Japanese occupation (1941-1945) it was used as a military brothel and that it is haunted by the spirits of the women held there. Abandoned for decades, it is a Grade I historic building owned by Hopewell Holdings, which has pledged to restore it.
Nam Koo Terrace is the name of an abandoned house in Hong Kong that is said to be haunted.
The story
The house, also known as “the Wan Chai haunted house” or “the red house”, stands at 55 Ship Street, has two floors and was built between 1915 and 1921. It belonged to a wealthy Shanghai merchant family, the To family, and was home to a well-known Hong Kong businessman, To Chun-man, a manager at the Wing On department stores and a member of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce.
It is a Colonial Eclectic villa, with Classical Revival and Italian Renaissance elements mixed with traditional Chinese decorations: red bricks, Doric and Ionic columns, a curved porch and, on the roof, a Chinese pavilion. The position of the entrance and the asymmetrical plan suggest it was also designed following feng shui principles.
During World War II, however, To Chun-man was forced to leave the house after the Japanese invasion.
It is said that from 1941 to 1945 the house was used by Japanese soldiers as a military brothel, one of the so-called “comfort houses”, and that many women were locked in its rooms and forced into sexual slavery.
It was not the only building in Wan Chai used this way: other buildings in the district, such as St. Luke’s College and nearby Tung Chi College, were also reportedly turned into brothels for the military. After the war To Chun-man returned to Nam Koo Terrace, but died soon after. The house remained in the To family until 1988, when it was sold to YUBA Co. Ltd.
In 1993 the house passed to Hopewell Holdings, a large property group, which wanted to demolish it to build the Hopewell Centre II skyscraper. The project was approved by the government in 1994, but the works were never carried out and Nam Koo Terrace was left abandoned, visited only by squatters and the curious.
The ghosts of Nam Koo Terrace
Many claim the house is haunted by the spirits of the women imprisoned there during the occupation, who, according to the stories, died there.
People talk of screams and cries coming from the empty rooms, and strange flames have sometimes been seen inside.
For the flames, actually, there is a simple explanation: for years the house was used as a shelter by squatters, who probably lit fires to keep warm.
The most famous case dates back to 2003. According to the Oriental Daily and many other Hong Kong newspapers, on the night of November 30 a group of 8 middle school students decided to spend the night in the house to see whether supernatural things really happened inside.
Three of them became extremely agitated, claiming to have been attacked by a spirit. One in particular, according to the stories, seemed to have suddenly changed personality and spoke in a voice that was not hers, and did not want, or perhaps was unable, to leave the property.
The police were called and took the three girls to hospital for psychiatric treatment. In the following days hundreds of people flocked to Nam Koo Terrace and the house stayed on the front pages for weeks.
Other stories circulate online too: some say dozens of bodies have been found in the house and garden over the years, and some swear that anyone who enters has visions of bloody, beheaded women. However, I could not find any reliable source confirming these rumors. Still, it remains a place many prefer to stay away from, a bit like Aokigahara forest.
Nam Koo Terrace today
In 1996 Nam Koo Terrace was declared a Grade I historic building and today it cannot be demolished without government permission. In 2008 Hopewell Holdings announced it would restore the house as part of the new Hopewell Centre II project, but no concrete plans have been announced since.
Since 2009 it has been part of the Wan Chai Heritage Trail, a route through the district’s historic sites. You can still see it from outside by climbing the Ship Street steps, a few minutes from exit B2 of Wan Chai MTR station. German music trio Trademark shot the video for their song I’ll Be There For You there.
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