Living in The Harbourview Apartments

Living in The Harbourview

Built in 1995, the Harbourview is an exclusive and luxurious multi apartment building located in an elevated position on a road to the famous Peak. With commanding views out over the Hong Kong Harbour and the surrounding lush hillside vegetation, this building has always been a sought out residence since it’s development for those lucky enough to find an apartment for sale or lease. Tightly held, with a total of only 51 apartments, the residents have the advantage of very spacious rooms, most with unobstructed and breath taking views through floor to ceiling windows, grand entrance halls, up to 4 large sized bedrooms with walk in closets and en-suite bathrooms, centralised air conditioning and covered car parks. The apartments range in size from 1121 sq ft to 4767 sq ft saleable area.

The building and facilities are maintained and managed to the highest standard with resort style swimming pools, sauna, squash courts, gym and function rooms. Landscaped gardens offer plenty of room for children with indoor/outdoor playgrounds. The residential component of the property sits high above the 5 story carpark.

Harbourview is located on Magazine Gap Road which is the neighbourhood of Consular homes, Embassies, and luxury mansions. This has always been an exclusive and expensive neighbourhood, from since colonial days with the air being cooler and cleaner at a higher altitude set amongst the green vegetation to escape the scorching hot summer weather. Today with air conditioning and dehumidifiers, the main reasons people want to live towards the Peak are certainly the quieter pace, fresher air, the access to hiking trails and recreational pursuits, but mostly because from here you get without comparison, the very best views out over the Victoria Harbour and the city skyline.

Unlike other roads in the area, Magazine Gap maintains a low density with buildings scattered amongst the hillside and plenty of open green space in between. Magazine Gap Road is also one of the easiest roads on the hill to access, being a decent width and having two way traffic lanes.  Other nearby streets can be narrow and only room enough for one car at a time. This is also importantly a non commercial area and strictly only residential.

  Most of the first houses in the area were large mansions, built for the rich and famous with beautiful gardens terracing down the steep hillside. They were given distinguished names by their owners  such as “Katoomba”, "Rose Hill", "Cringleford", and "Idlewild".  Sara Roosevelt, the mother of Franklin D. Roosevelt, lived here in Hong Kong with her family on Rose Hill from 1862–1865 during the American Civil War.

The name Magazine Gap comes from a military term for an armaments store. This famous hillside played quite a part in the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong and was heavily bombed and shelled during the final weeks standoff before the surrender of Hong Kong Island. Most of the large homes that existed in the area were commandeered by the British army to house and HQ British commanders and soldiers stationed in Hong Kong during this time.

By the time the 1970’s and 80’s came around Magazine Gap and surrounding streets heading up towards the Peak became popular again amongst the city’s wealthy and was the No. 1 area where all of Hongs Kongs tycoons wanted to live. (This has not changed today with a more recent purchase made by Ali Baba’s Jack Ma). Much of the developments of multi family high-rise buildings sprung up around this period and towards 2000, and whilst the majority are now heading towards 30 and 40 years old, all of these buildings have been kept in the highest condition, and remain in constant demand.

Harbourview is well served by buses, mini-buses and a shuttle bus to Central.  School age children are well catered to with any number of private and International schools in the area or a short commute away. The Islands best hospitals are within easy reach, and whilst there are no commercial buildings or shops on Magazine Gap, you are a close drive or walk away from any number of shopping centres, including at The Peak, Admiralty , Wanchai and Pacific Place to the mid level’s Cain Road. The commonly held thought is if you can afford to live in this suburb, you can afford to own a car.