The Sathon Mansion () or Luang Chitchamnongwanit Mansion is a complex of historic buildings in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estim ...

, Thailand. It was built in 1888 for Luang Sathonrachayut (Yom Pisolyabutra), the wealthy Chinese businessman who developed Sathon Road, and later served as the Hotel Royal, the Soviet embassy (later the Russian embassy) and, since 2015, a restaurant and entertainment venue for the W Bangkok hotel, known as The House on Sathorn.

History

The mansion was built in 1888, during the reign of

King Chulalongkorn Chulalongkorn (20 September 1853 – 23 October 1910), posthumously honoured as King Chulalongkorn the Great, was the fifth king of Siam from the Chakri dynasty, titled Rama V. Chulalongkorn's reign from 1868 until his death in 1910 was cha ...

(Rama V), for Luang Sathonrachayut (Yom Pisolyabutra), the wealthy Chinese businessman and government official who owned and developed the land around Khlong Sathon, and later served as the residence of Luang Chitchamnongwanit, his son-in-law. In 1910, Luang Chitchamnongwanit went bankrupt, and ownership of the mansion fell to the Privy Purse (later to become the

Crown Property Bureau The Crown Property Bureau (CPB) (; ) is legally the administrative agency responsible for managing the property of the King of Thailand. The king had appointed six members of the bureau's governing board, with the seventh the sitting Minister of ...

) in 1916. King

Vajiravudh Vajiravudh (1 January 188126 November 1925) was the sixth Monarchy of Thailand, king of Siam from the Chakri dynasty, titled Rama VI. He reigned from 1910 until his death in 1925. King Vajiravudh is best known for his efforts to create and pro ...

(Rama VI) bestowed the mansion to Chao Phraya Ram Rakhop, and later, in the 1920s, it became the site of the Hotel Royal, under the management of Madame Staro. In 1948, the property was leased to the USSR, and it served as the site of the Soviet embassy (later the Russian embassy) until the year 1999. The mansion underwent extensive renovations in the 2000s, as part of the development of the Sathorn Square office tower and the W Bangkok hotel, which now flank the mansion on each side. It reopened in July 2015 as a restaurant and entertainment venue for the W Bangkok, known as The House on Sathorn. The building complex received the

ASA Architectural Conservation Award The Architectural Conservation Award () is given by the in recognition of architectural conservation efforts by both the public and private sectors in Thailand. The awards, first given in 1982 and held annually since 2004, are presented to multipl ...

in the award of merit for the architecture and community heritage conservation category for the 2020–2021 year.

Architecture

The complex comprises four buildings surrounding a central courtyard. The main mansion, the first to be built, is a two-storey structure in the Neoclassical style, with a central front porch and a three-storey tower in one corner. The

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other vertical sides ...

is covered with diamond-shaped cement tiles, and the interior is extensively decorated with carved teak, with

tin ceiling A tin ceiling is an architectural element, consisting of a ceiling finished with tinplate with designs pressed into them, that was very popular in Victorian architecture, Victorian buildings in North America in the late 19th and early 20th cent ...

s on the lower floor. The two three-storey side wings were added during Luang Chitchamnongwanit's time, and the rear building, originally a single-storey service building, was later converted to a two-storey reinforced concrete structure.

Notes

References

{{Bang Rak District Buildings and structures in Bangkok Registered ancient monuments in Bangkok Russian ambassadorial residences Soviet Union–Thailand relations Bang Rak district