Did you know that back in the 1960s, Discovery Bay was a cattle ranch complete with a slaughterhouse? It was owned and inhabited by just one family, whom this writer has promised not to name. At this time there was no beef coming out of China, so the cattle were brought to DB to feed the Hong Kong people. The livestock were imported from the Northern Territory in Australia, and unloaded at DB Pier.
In the 1960s, the original beach was on the other side of DB Pier. (Tai Pak Wan, in case you didn’t know, is man-made.) The sea was crystal clear and teeming with fish, even close to the shore. There were pig farms on the hills – back then DB was as rural as the rest of Lantau, and an undeveloped Lantau at that.
Whispers; there’s a lot of rumour to sift through. The original owners, the Cha Group and the Hong Kong Government were key players. It’s clear that the owners devised a plan in the 1970s for a low-rise, traffic-free development, and that this never got off the ground. The associated scandal involves debts to the Soviet government-controlled Moscow Narodny Bank, legal battles with the Hong Kong Government and just possibly a little Cold War espionage.
The head of the family who originally owned DB, who came up with the first plan for its development, is said to be depicted in John Le Carré’s spy novel The Honourable Schoolboy (1977). The honourable schoolboy of the title is Gerald Westerby, a British spy sent to Hong Kong.
One thing’s for sure, by 1979 DB was in the hands of Cha Chi-Ming of the Cha Group – HKR International handles the Cha Group’s real estate businesses in Asia. Unlike other large Hong Kong developments, everything in DB was built with private money, including the roads, electricity, and water supply. Even the government-operated fire and police stations and the government-aided local primary school were built by the developer.
In 1979, work started on the reservoir and core infrastructure; the first phases of Beach Village, Headland Village and Parkridge Village were completed in 1982. It’s incredible to think that realtors could not find buyers for DB’s beachfront homes. Back then the asking price for properties in Seabee Lane was around HK$300,000.
