The wine tower would now become a gin tower, holding over 1,000 bottles of gin, the largest collection of its kind. Instead of the wine fairy, there would be a spiral staircase and a ladder for bartenders to fetch the bottles. Paul explained all the details of the venue to come, including an amazing staff, DJs and dancers on the raised stage at the opposite end of the lobby. It all sounded like a dream. Fast forward three months later. I’d cleverly timed my return to Singapore to coincide with the gala opening of ATLAS on March 25. I felt extremely lucky to have been given an invitation to the event, surely the most important event of the year in the cocktail world. Plus Paul arranged for me to sit down with Vicky Hwang, the woman in charge of the ATLAS project.
Vicky explained to me that Parkview Square building is very important to her family because it was the last one built by her grandfather, the late CS Hwang. Before entering real estate, Vicky’s grandfather had been a member of the Nationalist Kuomintang army in China, and was responsible for screening Chinese Nationalists retreating to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War. Through his humanistic approach, he managed to form friendships with many of his interviewees, some of whom were former generals or high-ranking officers. These powerful figures went on to form the new Taiwanese government and partly through the connections CS Hwang had made, he founded the Chyau Fwu Corporation, securing government contracts for large-scale infrastructures projects such as airports, dams, railways and schools. The family then shifted its focus to residential and commercial properties in Taiwan before moving to Hong Kong in 1980, where they developed their most famous property, Hong Kong Parkview, a luxury residential/recreational complex on Hong Kong Island. With political and economic uncertainty in the turnover of Hong Kong to China, CS Hwang decided to diversify the family’s assets, extending operations to Beijing, London and Singapore.
In his 70s at the time, CS Hwang wanted to do something truly special as his foray into South East Asia. He decided to build Parkview Square just outside the CBD of Singapore. People thought he was crazy for developing in a less than prime area for real estate. However, the money that was saved on land was put towards constructing one of the most impressive buildings in the world, a common strategy employed by the Hwang family. The gamble that Vicky’s grandfather made on building Parkview Square in Bugis had paid off – the district is now popular with developers, with the Duo skyscraper about to open just in front of Parkview Square. However, after 14 years, the interior lobby at Parkview Square was due for a refresh, which is where Vicky comes in.
Vicky was raised in Hong Kong and has degrees from Stanford and Georgetown. She was previously the leasing director of the Battersea Power Station, the iconic decommissioned coal-fired power station in London. She holds that property dear to her heart, but her family eventually sold it in 2006. She then worked on rebuilding Chateau de Coligny in France along with her husband Vincent Pieron. With the slowdown in the European economy, they moved to Singapore in 2013, where Vicky was given the staggering task of renovating her grandfather’s passion project. Through a friend, she was put in touch with Spencer and Paul of Proof & Company, who presented her two options for the lobby: do a minor refresh of the Divine wine bar or go all out, and build a completely new bar. Vicky and the Proof team decided that a gin bar would be appropriate, given the elegant and majestic James Bond-like space, ideal for sipping a gin martini.
One of the biggest tasks of the lobby makeover was given to Master of Gin Jason Williams, who was responsible for curating and accumulating the largest collection of gin in the world. He told me many gin distillers, inspired by the vision of a great gin bar in Asia, personally contributed bottles to the collection. In addition, many other gins were transported to Singapore by “gin mules”, a.k.a. loyal friends and family. Proof & Company estimates there are now at least 2,000 gins in the world and as of the gala launch, ATLAS bar had secured 1,011 of them, including one from Buitenverwachting wine farm in South Africa, delivered by yours truly.
In addition to the vast collection of gin, ATLAS has over 250 bottles of champagne, stored in a walk-in cellar below the gin tower. The collection includes many rare bottles from the family’s personal collection including the 1907 Heidsieck & Co Monopole “Gout Americain”, which is securely locked in its own case. These rare bottles were recovered from the shipwrecked Jonkoping schooner that was sunk in the Baltic Sea in 1916. Originally destined for officers of the Imperial Russian army during World War 1, the bottles were found to be perfectly preserved, with the deep-sea being ideal conditions for aging the champagne.
