The South East Asia Hotel is a hotel on Waterloo Street in downtown Singapore.
Piling work on the four-storey building, which was designed by Chan Yee Lim, began in October 1952.[1]
The building cost $600,000 and its main part was scheduled for completion by the end of August 1953.[2] It opened on 1 October, with 34 rooms, a hall and an adjoining carpark.[3] By March 1981, the total number of rooms at the hotel had increased to 51. Its occupants at the time were primarily European tourists and Asian businessmen.[4]
On 13 November 1985, Indonesian fish merchant Nurdin Nguan Song was murdered at the hotel by two hitmen,[5] who were sent by a business rival to attack Nurdin. One of them, Loh Yoon Seong, was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1990,[6] while the other, Tan Swee Hoon, was jailed and caned for manslaughter and unrelated robbery charges in 1993.[7] [8]
In April 1986, The Business Times reported that, despite the hotel's "low" $33 to $44 rate, the hotel had seen a 20% decrease in occupancy levels from 85% in the previous year.[9] However, it was reported in November 1989 that occupancy levels had greatly increased within the past few months.[10]
The hotel features a "plain and simple" façade, with walls made of reinforced concrete and windows framed with metal and accompanied by fixed ventilators either above or below. It utilises hand-written ledgers for reservations. Coin-operated scales can be found by the lift and mini-televations are mounted on the walls of the hotel's rooms.[11] In 1974, Kwan Im Restaurant a Chinese vegetarian restaurant operated by the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple next door, opened in the hotel's lobby. In May 1976, in a positive review of the restaurant for the New Nation, Violet Oon noted that the restaurant had "established a reputation for serving good food at reasonable prices."[12] According to Roots, which is published by the National Heritage Board, the restaurant is "popularly known for providing sumptuous Chinese vegetarian cuisine."[11]