Mention Serangoon Gardens to any Singaporean and you’ll probably hear words like “high-SES” and “boujee”. That’s a fairly accurate description of the neighbourhood today, with its multimillion-dollar landed homes and Chomp Chomp just around the corner. But did you know that the estate was originally built for Singapore’s lower-income office workers?
In the 1950s, British developer Steven Charles Macey set up the Serangoon Garden Estate Company and bought 300 acres of rubber plantation land from Singapore United Rubber Plantations. His plan was to build around 2,200 homes for lower-income white-collar workers.
2,200 homes initially built for Singapore’s white-collar workers with prices as low as $11,900
Serangoon Garden Circus.
Image credit: Lester Koh via Google Maps
The entire estate began as a low-cost housing project of 2,200 homes, and was marketed towards lower-income white-collar workers, with terraces priced from $12,000 and bungalows at $21,000.
Compare that with today, when terrace homes on Hythe Road have sold from $4.8M and a landed home loan here can easily run into the millions. A monthly instalment under $100 is hard to picture now, although that modest sum was definitely worth a lot more back then.
A 1950s advertisement with deposits, loans and monthly repayments listed by house type.
Image credit: Josephine Ong, via National Heritage Board
The estate was built for local salaried workers, but it soon drew another group of residents. British servicemen and their families, including RAF families looking for homes outside their camps, rented houses and rooms from local owners.
Shops at Serangoon Garden Circus in 1995.
Image credit: Lee Kip Lin Collection, National Library Singapore, via NHB
Many of them gathered at the Serangoon Gardens Sports Club, which Macey and residents founded in 1955. It officially opened in 1956. Membership cost $2 and was open only to estate residents, and the club’s own history says most members were British servicemen. Activities ranged from football and hockey to billiards and darts.
In 1981, redevelopment turned it into the Serangoon Gardens Country Club we know today.
Most of present-day Serangoon Gardens has been rebuilt
Image credit: Remember Singapore
Much of Serangoon Gardens today is lined with tall, rebuilt terraces, but you’ll still spot a few old-school terraced homes along streets like Bridport Avenue.
A renovated corner terrace advertised at $6.28M. Listing checked on 30th September 2026.
Image credit: Avery Lee via PropertyGuru
Today’s listings show just how different a home in the estate can look. A Serangoon Gardens corner terrace advertised at $6.28M, checked on 30th September 2026, comes with a landscaped outdoor area, a sheltered patio and contemporary kitchen and bathroom finishes. The listing gives a land area of 2,950sqft and a 999-year lease.
Serangoon Gardens homes once sold for $11,900
The red zinc roofs explain an old nickname; the newer houses show how much owners have changed the estate since. For one particularly distinctive example, take a look inside Oku House, a Serangoon Gardens terrace reworked around greenery and layered spaces.
Next time you’re heading to Chomp Chomp, give yourself a few extra minutes before dinner. Look up at the street names and along the rows of houses, then think back to that sales leaflet with its $81.50 monthly instalments. The supper stop you know so well began as somewhere a salaried worker might plan to buy a first home.
Read other related articles:
- Did You Know Marine Parade’s HDB Flats & Condos Are All Built On Reclaimed Land?
- The History Behind The Landed Homes At Jalan Chempaka Puteh & Jalan Chempaka Kuning
- 7 Singapore Estates That Were Built Over Exhumed Grave Sites
- This Serangoon Gardens Terrace House Looks Otherworldly
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