The real Emerald Hill: This global Singaporean’s kids walk to Orchard Road in pyjamas - The Straits Times

The children of Deborah Yeo, secretary of Emerald Hill Conservation Association, routinely walk to Orchard Road in their pyjamas, treating the global shopping street as part of their forever home.

SINGAPORE – Occasionally, two children may be spied padding from their Emerald Hill forever home to glitzy Orchard Road dressed in their most comfortable pyjamas.

The 10-year-old girl and her seven-year-old brother are on an independent mission to buy ice cream, adjust glasses or run a quick errand. This is more than a cute family routine. It signifies a profound sense of safety and liveability on the fringe of a global shopping belt.

Other days, the siblings may be tasked with delivering a bottle of wine to neighbours, returning with jelly packets, fresh basil plucked from a vertical herb garden, or homemade barbecue pork.

For their mother, 43-year-old finance professional Deborah Yeo, these small moments of village intimacy give her ample reason to anchor her young family here. 

Yeo is a Singaporean and global citizen who spent part of her childhood in the United States and her corporate years in London. Returning to Singapore a few years ago, she experienced the friction of re-entry, wondering how to reconnect deeply with her roots. 

“I’ve had the luxury of experiencing living in different cultures, and for a long time, Singapore did not feel like home,” she reflects. “It was very hard for me to come back and feel part of something.”

She scouted heritage properties in areas like Joo Chiat and Blair Road, but it was Emerald Hill that resonated as the destination to plant her family.

Four years ago, they moved into a courtyard terraced house built in 1925. She requests no private details of her family or home.

“It was built even before Singapore’s significant progress,” she says. “This street saw Singapore grow up.”

Deborah Yeo’s children intuitively grasp that they are living in a slice of history in tile-clad patina-rich Emerald Hill.

Unlike buyers who gut the interiors of conservation properties, she loved the home’s original patina.

While her electrical engineering background came in handy when she personally verified the house’s wiring and piping, these were about the only new systems installed.

She kept the beautifully chipped courtyard tiles and the ventilation blocks that allow air to circulate naturally through the property, keeping the ground floor remarkably cool without air-conditioning. 

She also saved every old wooden door removed during renovation to repurpose as wardrobes. This ethos of stewardship has passed down to the next generation. 

Deborah Yeo, secretary of Emerald Hill Conservation Association, and its president, Richard Helfer, at his Emerald Hill house on Sept 29.

Her daughter, unprompted, understands that she lives in a slice of history and once reasoned: “People like our neighbourhood because we’re the only ones left.” Yeo muses: “I’m struck that even a child intuitively grasps the significance of the place.”

Her kids have also grown civic-minded, picking up litter in common spaces without being asked or alerting her when lights need fixing. 

Meanwhile, her daughter has claimed the house as her permanent abode, even drawing up elaborate plans to split the bedrooms when she has a family of her own.

She cheekily suggested that Yeo be the one “to move out and see the world”. “A mild grievance we will discuss later,” Yeo quips.

For Emerald Hill residents, living here means accepting the constant stream of visitors in and beyond the enclave, which adjoins Orchard Road.

Buying a residence in a desirable postal code means accepting the constant stream of tourists outside – Yeo’s family of four treats it as a trade-off for an immense privilege.

Yeo, the secretary of Emerald Hill Conservation Association, looks forward to the neighbourhood’s next aspirational steps – including the hopes of converting a carpark into a community park equipped with swings and seating. 

It will be a green respite for all – while giving the precinct’s next cohort of pyjama-clad kids another lovely reason to call Emerald Hill home.