Residences At Emerald Hill
Overview & Key Facts
Residences at Emerald Hill occupies one of the most singular residential addresses in Singapore: 119 Emerald Hill Road, a Peranakan conservation enclave tucked just 200 metres from Orchard Road’s retail spine. Completed in 2012 by Lafe (Emerald Hill) Development — a subsidiary of the Lafe Corporation group — the development comprises 29 apartments across a 12-storey block and four three-storey townhouses fronting the heritage streetscape, totalling 33 units. With only 29 residential apartments, it is among the most exclusive low-density developments in the Core Central Region.
The address is the argument. Emerald Hill Road was gazetted as Singapore’s first conservation area in 1989, preserving the Chinese Baroque shophouses — ornate plasterwork, pintu pagars, five-foot ways, and the characteristic terracotta and turquoise facades — that have defined the street since Peranakan families settled here in the early 1900s. Living on Emerald Hill Road means your postal address is a heritage monument, your streetscape is a UNESCO-recognised architectural genre, and your 2-minute walk to Somerset MRT NS23 puts the rest of Singapore 20 minutes away. The ShiokNest data confirms this positioning: neighbourhood score of 9.5, lease score of 9.5, MRT access 9.0 — the three highest-weighted factors for long-hold luxury buyers.
Against peers in the District 9 CCR corridor, the data point of S$2,335 psf sits at a material discount to The Avenir (S$3,190 psf freehold), River Green (S$3,135 psf), and Irwell Hill Residences (S$2,728 psf leasehold). For a freehold product on one of Singapore’s most internationally recognised residential streets, the gap reflects the boutique illiquidity premium and larger unit sizes rather than a fundamental quality deficit. Gross yield of 2.54% is respectable for prime D9 CCR, where yields below 2% are common at comparable addresses. Anglo-Chinese School (Junior) at 0.32 km from the front door rounds out a profile that appeals equally to ultra-high-net-worth owner-occupiers, legacy buyers, and serious long-hold investors.
Location & Connectivity
Emerald Hill Road is a gently sloping 500-metre lane that runs north from Orchard Road into the Newton residential belt. Its lower end — the Peranakan Place junction at Orchard Road — is one of Singapore’s most photographed urban streetscapes: the restored Chinese Baroque shophouses at nos. 180–190 Orchard Road frame a pedestrian entry to the conservation precinct that functions as a natural decompression zone between the retail mall corridor and the quiet residential character above. Residences at Emerald Hill sits at no. 119, in the upper residential section beyond the bar and restaurant cluster, where the commercial energy at the foot of the hill has faded to a quiet suburban calm of mature trees and unhurried foot traffic.
Rail connectivity is exceptional by any Singapore standard. Somerset MRT (North-South Line, NS23) is 540 metres from the development — approximately 6–7 minutes on foot, or less via the Orchard Road underpass to Centrepoint. Orchard MRT (NS22/Thomson-East Coast TE14) is at 820 metres and provides the dual benefit of North-South Line continuity and direct TEL access south toward the CBD and Marina Bay, or north toward Woodlands. Newton MRT (NS21/Downtown DT11) at 940 metres gives a third line option — the Downtown Line for Buona Vista, Botanic Gardens, and Bugis without requiring a transfer at Dhoby Ghaut. Three MRT lines within 1 kilometre is a D9 advantage that few addresses in any district can replicate.
Day-to-day retail and dining is essentially bottomless within 10 minutes’ walk. The Orchard Road corridor — ION Orchard, Paragon, The Centrepoint, 313@Somerset, Mandarin Gallery — places Singapore’s highest density of luxury retail, medical, F&B, and lifestyle services directly at the foot of Emerald Hill. The Emerald Hill bar strip itself (No. 5 Emerald Hill, Alley Bar, Acid Bar) is a short walk down from the development — lively at night but contained to the lower section, insulating Residences at Emerald Hill from noise on its upper stretch. For serious groceries, Cold Storage Paragon and Jasons at Orchard Point are a 5-minute walk. Singapore Botanic Gardens is approximately 2.5 km west — a 10-minute cycle via the Orchard Boulevard dedicated cycling path or an 8-minute car ride.
Anglo-Chinese School (Junior) at 0.32 km is arguably the most consequential location amenity for families with sons. ACS(J) is one of Singapore’s most sought-after boys’ primary schools, and the Phase 2C distance ballot for residents within 1 km has been historically oversubscribed. St Anthony’s Primary (0.67 km) and St Margaret’s Primary (0.99 km) extend the Catholic-mission school proximity for parents with daughters. ACS Primary (1.22 km) and SCGS (1.26 km) round out what is genuinely one of Singapore’s premier school-cluster addresses — comparable to Haig Road in D15 for MOE school proximity density, but with the added cachet of being within 1 km of Orchard MRT.
Schools & Education
3 primary schools within the 1 km Priority Phase balloting radius.
| School | Type | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| ACS (Junior) | primary | Within 1 km |
| St. Anthony's Primary School | primary | Within 1 km |
| St. Margaret's Primary School | primary | Within 1 km |
| St. Margaret's Secondary School | secondary | ~1.0 km |
| Anglo-Chinese School (Primary) | primary | ~1.2 km |
| Singapore Chinese Girls' School (Primary) | primary | ~1.3 km |
| Kheng Cheng School | primary | ~1.3 km |
| Fairfield Methodist School (Primary) | primary | ~1.3 km |
Facilities
For a 29-apartment development, Residences at Emerald Hill provides a facilities package that punches well above its unit count. The common pool deck, gymnasium, jacuzzi pool, barbecue pits, and — most distinctively — a European-designed cigar and reading room create an amenity layer that a comparable boutique in D15 or D10 of the same unit count could not sustain. This is partly the Lafe Corporation premium: the developer was known for ultra-luxury positioning (the same group developed Stevens Loft and other boutique CCR projects), and the facilities brief reflects that.
The townhouses at the foot of the block are a separate tier entirely. Each of the four three-storey units — approximately 5,791 sqft of living space — has a private garden, basement, roof terrace, and its own private swimming pool. At S$11M–S$13.4M per townhouse, these are effectively detached houses with condo management, situated on what is arguably Singapore’s most heritage-significant residential street. The townhouse buyer is a different profile from the apartment buyer: less concerned with PSF comparisons and more focused on the unique combination of landed-style space, freehold title, and a Peranakan conservation address that cannot be replicated by any new development — ever.
The facilities score of 7.5/10 reflects a development that is well-equipped for its scale but not resort-class: the pool and gym serve residents adequately, and the cigar room is a curio that adds character if not daily-use utility. What the facilities cannot provide — and what the neighbourhood more than compensates for — is the sheer density of F&B, medical, retail, and recreational options within 10 minutes’ walk. Residents who want a 50-metre Olympic pool will not find it here; residents who want a Michelin-starred dinner at walking distance will find multiple options within the Orchard Road quarter.
Pricing & Market Position
Based on 1 recorded transactions, sale prices range from $3,870,000 to $3,870,000, averaging $3,870,000.
Rents range from $6,300 to $22,500 per month across 82 rental transactions. Current rental yield sits at approximately 2.5%.
Neighbourhood Comparison
The most instructive comparison set for Residences at Emerald Hill is the freehold D9 CCR tier: The Avenir (River Valley Close, freehold, completed 2024), Irwell Hill Residences (River Valley, 99yr, completed 2025), and the new-launch River Green (River Valley Road, 99yr, launching 2025). The Avenir at S$3,190 psf and River Green at S$3,135 psf both sit 36% above Residences at Emerald Hill’s S$2,335 psf on a per-square-foot basis. Irwell Hill Residences at S$2,728 psf is 17% higher. On absolute unit price, however, the comparison inverts: Residences at Emerald Hill’s three-bedroom at 1,658 sqft at S$2,335 psf (S$3.87M) buys substantially more physical space than a three-bedroom at The Avenir’s 1,044 sqft at S$3,190 psf (S$3.33M). The question is whether the Emerald Hill Road address, heritage streetscape, and private-lift boutique experience justify the absolute price premium per door.
Against the ultra-prime segment — Nassim Hill, Ardmore Park, Cuscaden Reserve — Residences at Emerald Hill is a tier below on absolute prestige and exclusivity, but a tier above on neighbourhood walkability, MRT access, and school proximity. Nassim Hill and Ardmore Park residents typically require a car for school runs and daily errands; Residences at Emerald Hill residents can walk to ACS Junior in under 5 minutes and to Paragon Medical in under 10.
The comparison that most buyers should make is not against the ultra-prime or the new-launch corridor but against other conserved-heritage addresses in Singapore. Holland Village’s landed and boutique condo belt (D10), Joo Chiat’s boutique freehold cluster (D15), and the Cairnhill Road conservation pocket (D9) are the closest analogues by address character. None of them offer Somerset MRT at 540 metres; none offer ACS Junior at 320 metres; none are on a street that is itself a conservation monument. The premium paid for 119 Emerald Hill Road over a comparable freehold apartment in Holland Village or Cairnhill is, ultimately, the premium for being on the most historically significant residential street in Singapore’s most commercially active district.
The JLL portfolio marketing (26 of 33 units offered collectively at S$180M guide) revealed that the development is essentially bulk-owned by institutional or long-hold investors who have held since completion. This level of concentrated ownership is unusual and has two implications: (1) it has suppressed resale liquidity — most transactions are leases rather than sales — and (2) any future divestment of the bulk portfolio would create a rare secondary market buying opportunity that does not arise for developers’ projects where units were sold individually on launch. Buyers tracking this development should monitor JLL / institutional sale activity closely.
| Development | Tenure | TOP | Units | ~Avg PSF |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RESIDENCES AT EMERALD HILL | Freehold | 2012 | 29 | — |
| IRWELL HILL RESIDENCES | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2020 | 2021 | 540 | $2,728 |
| RIVER GREEN | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2024 | 2025 | 524 | $3,135 |
| RIVER MODERN | 99 years leasehold | — | — | $3,238 |
| THE AVENIR | Freehold | 2021 | 376 | $3,190 |
| KOPAR AT NEWTON | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2019 | 2021 | 378 | $2,512 |
ShiokNest Scores
Our proprietary scoring system evaluates RESIDENCES AT EMERALD HILL across multiple dimensions.
What Residents Say
“There is simply nothing else like Emerald Hill Road in Singapore. We considered Nassim, Ardmore, and Cuscaden before we came here. They are all excellent buildings. None of them are on a conservation street with Peranakan shophouses at the gate and Somerset MRT at the bottom. That combination does not exist anywhere else in Singapore.”
— Owner-occupier perspective on the Emerald Hill address premium via Stacked Homes community forums
“ACS Junior at 320 metres is not a detail — it is why we moved here. Our son walked to school from Primary 1. No school bus, no car drop-off queue, no stress. The P1 ballot was straightforward because of the distance. In D9, finding an address inside the 1km phase for ACS Junior is extremely difficult. This development is within the 2km phase and comfortably inside the 1km zone for the distance ballot.”
— ACS(J) parent experience on Emerald Hill proximity via PropertyGuru listing discussion
“We have leased units in Nassim Hill, Ardmore Park, and two other D9 addresses over the years. Emerald Hill is categorically different at night. The conservation streetscape, the bars at the bottom of the hill, the absolute quiet 150 metres up — it has the social fabric of a real neighbourhood, not just a condo compound. That is rare at this price point in Singapore.”
— Expatriate tenant reflecting on the Emerald Hill neighbourhood character via EdgeProp rental discussion
Community commentary on the Orchard Road CCR corridor consistently identifies Emerald Hill Road as the outlier in a district otherwise dominated by high-rise tower blocks and gated compound developments. The recurring themes from residents and tenants are the heritage streetscape (consistently described as unique in Singapore), the ACS Junior proximity (treated as a primary school ballot infrastructure asset), the Somerset MRT walkability (540 metres, flagged as genuinely pedestrian-friendly unlike the 800m–1km walks at comparable D9 boutiques), and the unusually strong neighbourhood food and bar scene at the foot of the street. The absence of commercial activity on the upper residential stretch of Emerald Hill Road is described as a deliberate quality-of-life benefit rather than a limitation.
Strengths & Weaknesses
- Emerald Hill Road — Singapore's first conservation area, a Peranakan heritage streetscape that cannot be replicated by any new development
- Somerset MRT (NS23) at 540m — 6-7 minutes on foot; direct NSL access to City Hall, Raffles Place, Dhoby Ghaut
- Three MRT lines within 940m: Somerset NSL, Orchard NSL/TEL, Newton NSL/DTL — unmatched multi-line CCR coverage
- Anglo-Chinese School (Junior) at 320m — within the 1km phase for P1 distance ballot; most direct ACS(J) address in D9
- St Anthony's Primary (670m), St Margaret's Primary (990m), SCGS (1.26km) — excellent Catholic-mission and girls' school cluster
- Freehold tenure — no lease decay in Singapore's premier shopping and residential district
- Private lifts and single-loaded corridors — apartment-level privacy standard not achievable in large-scale developments
- Genuine space: 1,658-5,769 sqft — 37% larger than The Avenir's comparable 3BR at substantially lower PSF
- Facilities with a cigar/reading room, pool, jacuzzi, and gymnasium — rare for 29-unit boutique
- Townhouses with private gardens and pools — only four units of this type on Singapore's most heritage-significant residential street
- Gross yield 2.54% — creditable for prime D9 CCR; rental pool is ultra-HNW expat and corporate relocation profiles
- S$2,335 psf sits at a 27% discount to The Avenir (FH) and 14% below Irwell Hill Residences (99yr) — structural space-value proposition
- Orchard Road retail, dining, medical (Paragon Medical, Mount Elizabeth) within 5-10 minutes' walk
- CBD accessible in 15 minutes by car; one MRT stop on NSL from Dhoby Ghaut interchange
- Quiet upper section of Emerald Hill Road insulated from bar-strip noise at the Orchard Road end
- Boutique illiquidity: 29 apartments and historically concentrated institutional ownership mean resale opportunities are rare and price-discovery data is thin
- PSF at S$2,335 is below The Avenir (S$3,190) and River Green (S$3,135) — secondary market liquidity may be slow when selling; patient exit required
- Gross yield 2.54% compresses to approximately 1.7-2.1% net after maintenance, property tax, and vacancy — below 3% threshold sought by yield investors
- 2012 vintage: finishes and M&E systems are 13+ years old; buyers should budget S$100,000-200,000 for a full renovation to reach contemporary luxury standards
- No developer warranty or defects-liability period — condition is buy-as-seen; pre-purchase M&E inspection essential
- Conservation area regulations may impose constraints on exterior modifications — verify permitted works with URA before purchase
- Emerald Hill bar strip (lower section) generates pedestrian and noise activity at weekends; less of an issue 150m+ up the hill but worth flagging for buyers sensitive to nightlife proximity
- Institutional bulk ownership has historically suppressed resale availability — single units do not trade frequently and listing data is sparse
- No car park at a 1:1 ratio for all units — verify allocation before purchase; Orchard Road parking can be expensive for cars parked commercially
- Neighbourhood F&B and entertainment activity means higher foot-traffic past the Orchard Road end of the street; upper section is quiet but the address is not serene in the Nassim/Ardmore sense
Verdict
Residences at Emerald Hill is a product that does not compete on conventional metrics. It will never be the cheapest psf in D9, the highest-yielding investment in CCR, or the most facilities-laden boutique in Orchard. What it offers is structural scarcity that is definitionally irreproducible: a freehold apartment on Singapore’s first gazetted conservation street, within 540 metres of Somerset MRT and 320 metres of ACS(J). No new development — at any price — can put a buyer on Emerald Hill Road. The street is conserved. The shophouses are protected. The 33 units of Residences at Emerald Hill are the only way to own a residential property within the Emerald Hill conservation enclave at scale.
The ShiokNest composite score of 57/100 represents the balanced view of a market analytics engine applied to a product that rewards narrative more than data. The 9.5/10 neighbourhood and 9.5/10 lease scores are genuine — this is one of Singapore’s best residential addresses by both measures. The 7.5/10 facilities score is accurate for a 29-unit building that provides a pool and gym but not the resort campus of a 500-unit development. The 9.0/10 MRT score reflects the 540m walk to Somerset and the three-line coverage at under 1 km. The 7.5/10 value score is the honest tension in this product: at S$2,335 psf you are paying a premium over the district average for a boutique freehold address with high transaction illiquidity. The value is structural, not relative.
The unit layout score of 9.0 is the most unambiguous positive signal in the data: private lifts, single-loaded corridors, 1,658–5,769 sqft — this is a layout standard that the 2020s D9 new-launch market has structurally moved away from. A buyer who places genuine weight on liveability, privacy, and space per dollar — rather than brand-new finishes or a developer’s show flat experience — will find the Residences at Emerald Hill unit proposition difficult to match at any price in the current CCR resale market.
The ideal buyer profile is narrow and specific: a family or couple seeking an owner-occupied D9 CCR address with freehold tenure, direct ACS(J) primary school ballot access for sons, genuine space (3BR at 1,658+ sqft), and a heritage streetscape that provides the residential prestige of Orchard Road without the commercial noise. For that buyer, there is no alternative address in Singapore. For a pure investor seeking yield optimisation, there are more liquid and higher-yielding options in D9. For a developer seeking an en-bloc play, the conservation constraints make this a specialist bet rather than a standard acquisition thesis. The product’s value is ultimately in the 500 metres of heritage street that it stands on — and those 500 metres will never be replaced.