19 October 2024

Staying at the Marian,
a boutique hotel in
Kuching with a place
in church life in Sarawak

The Marian boutique lodging house, perched prominently on top of a hill in Kuching, was built in 1885 as the Ong family mansion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are preparing to move back into the flat in Upper China Street, off Carpenter Street in the Old Bazaar in Kuching, and close to Saint Thomas’s Anglican Cathedral.

After our epic and marathon journey getting here, it has taken a little longer than we expected to get the flat back into a decent shape. And so, for our first week in Kuching, we are staying in the Marian Boutique Lodging House on Wayang Street.

This stylish and picturesque boutique hotel is perched prominently on top of a hill, beside the Anglican Church compound that includes Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, the Bishop’s House, the House of the Epiphany, the cathedral hall and the parish centre.

The Marian has been painstakingly renovated, preserving the building’s 19th century timber architecture and dark timber floors (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Marian is Kuching’s first heritage boutique lodging house and it has been painstakingly renovated, preserving the building’s 19th century timber architecture and dark timber floors, retaining many of its charming original features, including the balconies and timber and wrought-iron fittings.

The Marian takes its name from Saint Mary’s School, the all-girls boarding school that was housed in the building for generations. The house was first built in 1885 by Ong Ewe Hai (1830-1888), a prominent businessman and community leader in Sarawak, whose father, Ong Khoon Tian, migrated from Fukien province in China to Singapore in the early 19th century. Generations of the Ong family played a prominent role in Hokkien community life in Sarawak.

Ong Ewe Hai was born in Singapore and his father died when he was 7. He arrived in Sarawak as a trader in 1846, when he was only 16. Within 10 years, he had established two firms, Kay Cheang, Ewe Hai & Co in Singapore and Ewe Hai, Moh & Co in Kuching. Later, he consolidated the two firms into Ewe Hai & Co, turning it into one of the leading companies in Sarawak.

The success of his export business brought him closer to the first Rajah of Sarawak, whose government relied largely on export taxes. His close relationship with Sir James Brooke earned Ewe Hai the appointment of Kapitan Cina within the Chinese community in Kuching.

Ong was devoted to Taoism and Buddhism and was a patron and guardian of all Buddhist and Taoist temples in Sarawak. He rebuilt Ewe Hai Street after the great Kuching fire in 1885-1886. He named the street after himself but left out his surname out of respect for the Rajah of Sarawak because the word Ong means King in Hokkien. Ewe Hai Street joins Carpenter Street from its junction with Bishopsgate Street to Wayang Street.

Ong Ewe Hai completed his house in 1885 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Ong strategically built his family mansion on one of the highest spots in Kuching, beside the compound that includes the cathedral and the Bishop’s House. Ong made sure his house overlooked the Sarawak River and the shops in the Main Bazaar and on Ewe Hai Street and Carpenter Street, and the house was completed in 1885.

The house was solidly built from belian, an exceptionally hard and heavy timber, and sun-baked bricks. The courtyard in front of the house was surrounded by a low wall inset with jade green openwork tiles. The entrance to the courtyard was a typical Chinese horned archway.

Ong never forgot his roots in Singapore, and died in 1889 at the age of 59. The house in Kuching remained in the family and was home to three generations of the Ong family, all under the same roof: Ewe Hai’s son, Ong Tiang Swee, his families and their families.

The former Malaysian Federal Minister of Science, Technology and Environment, Ong Kee Hui (1914-2000), was also born in the house, as were his brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins and nieces. Ong Kee Hui went into business and public service and co-founded the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), Sarawak’s first political party in 1959.

The swimming pool at the Marian in Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Ong family sold the mansion to the Anglican Diocese of Kuching in 1933 and it became a boarding house for Saint Mary’s School. A 6 ft cross was built on the roof, above the porch and can be seen from the bazaar and the river.

The names of the rooms in the house recall former matrons and headmistresses of Saint Mary’s School, Betty Johnson, Thelma Cook and Mary and Caroline Sharp, the McDougalls, who were the founders of Saint Mary’s, and Saint Nicholas, the boarding house for younger children.

Archdeacon Arthur Frederick Sharp (1866-1960), an SPG missionary, had worked in Tenerife, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, before he arrived in Kuching in 1897. He was joined by his sisters, Mary and Caroline Sharp, and Mary Sharp was put in charge of the boarding school in 1902.

We are staying in one of the 13 rooms named after Mary Sharp, who came to Kuching in the early 20th century with the support of SPG. The six Caroline Sharp rooms are named after her sister Caroline who was in charge of Saint Mary’s Girls’ School.

The six rooms in the Chapel Wing are in the space of the former chapel of Saint Mary’s Boarding House. Each of these rooms has a terrace overlooking the swimming pool.

The six rooms in the Chapel Wing are in the space of the former chapel of Saint Mary’s Boarding House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Betty Johnson Rooms are four family rooms named after the matron, Betty Johnson, who started the Cathedral Kindergarten in 1958.

The eight Thelma Cook Rooms recall Thelma Cook, the last housemistress of the boarding house, who arrived in Kuching from Australia in 1960.

The Saint Nicholas Apartment recalls the former Saint Nicholas Hostel, which opened at Easter 1927 as a boarding school for the smaller children at Saint Mary’s. The two-bedroom apartment is next to what was the air-well, once a distinctive feature of traditional Chinese houses in Kuching.

The McDougall Triple Room is named after the founder of the Mission School and his wife, Bishop Francis Thomas McDougall (1817-1886) and Harriette McDougall. They set sail from London on 30 December 1847, arriving in Sarawak on Saint Peter’s Day, 29 June 1848. They were received into the house of the Rajah, James Brooke, who gave them land for a school and a church.

Later, he became the first Anglican bishop in Sarawak (1849-1868) and was consecrated bishop in Calcutta on Saint Luke’s Day, 18 October 1855. He was supported by the Borneo Mission and SPG (now USPG) and was styled Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak because Labuan was a British territory and Sarawak was not. His consecration was the first of an English bishop to take place outside the British Isles.

The old Boarding House closed in 1967, and the Diocese of Kuching took over the house in 1968. The building then served as a diocesan guesthouse, where many USPG colleagues and representatives stayed when they were visiting Sarawak. The house was sold in 2013 and was converted into the Marian Lodging House. The boutique hotel opened in 2017, and we have been staying there all this week.

Today, the Marian has 40 rooms, ranging from standard rooms and family rooms to a two-bedroom apartment, all en-suite and with air-conditioning, and it also has an outdoor swimming pool and a restaurant on the site.

It has been an added bonus to swim here each day … my first opportunity to swim in an hotel pool since I stayed in La Stella Hotel in Tsesmes in Rethymnon, Crete, three years ago (September 2021).

The MarianLodging House at night … the boutique hotel opened in 2017 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Edited with minor corrections, 20 October 2024

1 comment:

Edgar Ong said...

Thanks Patrick. This is probably the most comprehensive essay on the house I've ever read. I am 5th generation Ong from the same family, today there's 8th generation living in Kuching.