Historic mansion doubles as inn and museum

PENANG, Malaysia — Good feng shui — the Chinese art of placing buildings and everything inside them in harmony with the environment — depends on how skillfully a designer incorporates the five elements of water, wood, metal, earth and fire.

When it comes to water, most people would be satisfied with a fountain, but not Cheong Fatt Tze.

When it rains outside, the water flows inside the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, a 16-room hotel inside the 19th-century home this rags-to-riches businessman built in the late 1800s as his base of operations in Penang.

From the wooden staircases to the stained-glass windows, Chinese lattice screens and bright indigo exterior, there's much to admire, but nothing compares to sitting out a thunderstorm in the tropical center courtyard — the spot where the "chi," or energy, is believed to be greatest.

Chinese craftsmen designed the mansion with drainage pipes in the walls and openings in the roof.

When it rains, the courtyard, made of sunken granite about 2 feet below floor-level and surrounded by plants, fills with water. Then, just when it looks as though it might reach the top and flood the tile floors, it slowly drains away.

For Cheong Fatt Tze, who left China at 16 in 1856 to seek his fortune in Penang, a center for the rubber, tin and spice trade, the slow accumulation of water equated to the slow accumulation of wealth.

Starting out as a water carrier, he built a banking and railroad fortune and married eight wives. Incorporating traditional Chinese style with quirky British and European details such as Scottish cast-iron columns and railings and imported floor tiles, he intended the 38-room mansion for his sons. Instead, after he died in 1916, one of the wives turned it into a boardinghouse.

Dilapidated and rundown, it was acquired by a group of local preservationists in 1990 and won a UNESCO award for historical conservation in 2000. It's now run as a museum and heritage home-stay with guest rooms ($83 with breakfast) on two floors.

Staying at Cheong Fatt Tze is a little like walking onto a movie set. In fact, parts of "Indochine," with Catherine Deneuve, were filmed inside the mansion.

The cartoonish paint job contrasts with the white-stucco high-rise hotels and British-style colonial buildings nearby, including the Eastern & Oriental Hotel built around the same time by the Sarkies, the family who also constructed Raffles Hotel in Singapore. Unusual now, the color was popular in Georgetown in the late 19th century when the British imported indigo dyes from India.

High-ceiling rooms with stone floors and heavy wooden doors and shutters lead to side courtyards where fans whirl above tables set into quiet nooks for reading or relaxing while listening to 1940s French jazz.

The staff is well-informed and attentive in a relaxed way, leaving guests with the feeling of being looked after by librarians or college professors rather than hotel clerks. We were offered cool glasses of nutmeg juice when we checked in at a small desk in the lobby furnished with Chinese antiques.

Modern touches include AC, Wi-Fi, new toilets and sinks, and, unfortunately, 21st-century noises. If Cheong Fatt Tze were alive today, he might be able to use his clout to do something about the late-night music coming from the Red Garden Food Paradise night market next door.

As it stands, it's probably best to take preemptive action if you plan to stay here. Ask for a room on the east side of the house. Same feng shui but much quieter.

Carol Pucci: 206-464-3701 or cpucci@seattletimes.com