GEORGE TOWN, April 13 — Although it feels like a new boutique hotel springs up in the Heritage Zone every time one visits, not all the new places are guaranteed to wow. So, when we heard about a new hotel in Love Lane we were a little sceptical. Until we actually visited, of course.

The bed and breakfast

Bare red brick walls. Intricately carved teak wood screens. Grand timber staircases leading up to high-ceilinged airy rooms. A strong sense of walking back into an era of servant girls toiling in the kitchens, of dainty Nyonyas sewing quietly in the spacious sitting rooms, of carved teak wood furniture and airwells keeping the house cool in the tropical heat.

These and so much more assail the senses of anyone who walks into the latest bed and breakfast on Love Lane, named simply “You Le Yuen.”

You Le Yuen when read out loud sounds like the words for “amusement park” in Mandarin but it actually means “teak wood paradise” and all it takes is a walk around the four-bedroom building to know why.

See Kit collected wooden furnishings and fixtures, some antiques, some reproductions from all over the country to use in the restoration of the building including these wooden shutters

The Straits Eclectic style building is one of the larger pre-war shophouses that boasts of more than 1,700 sq feet of space which its new owners, Leong See Kit and Leong See See, managed to turn into a warm, comfortable space with plenty of natural light and a balance of modern amenities and antique furniture.

The siblings had dreamed of transforming a vacant pre-war house into a beautifully-restored one reminiscent of its glorious past and this is exactly what they managed to do with house Number 7 along Love Lane.

Though not a trained architect or experienced in anything related to the restoration of heritage buildings, See Kit had a strong interest in the project and launched into it with his sister’s full support.

The former e-commerce project manager had been collecting bits and pieces of antiques, teak wood fixtures and furnishings and various heritage knick-knacks for four years before he and his sister finally found their very first restoration project in 2011.

Leong See Kit and his trusty chef and assistant, Narish, are running a two-men show in managing and upkeeping the You Le Yuen

“We were looking through many different buildings, including the pre-war house that my friend lived in before we decided on this unit,” See Kit shared.

The siblings had one special criteria when it came to purchasing a heritage building in George Town – it had to have been vacant for a few years so that they didn’t have to evict any original tenants.

The cast iron grille were salvaged from Yeap Chor Ee’s Homestead before the Homestead was converted into a part of the Wawasan Open University

“These original tenants, some who have been here for decades and have been plying their trades here...they are the living heritage of George Town so we do not want to come in and be the ones to get rid of this city’s living heritage,” he said.

Though both See Kit and See See were not born in Penang -- they were both born and bred in Kuala Lumpur – they both had their roots in Penang through their grandparents.

“Both my maternal and paternal grandfathers all arrived in the then Malaya through Penang and started out working in Penang before they moved,” See Kit said.

In fact, their paternal grandfather worked at the carpenters’ guild just down the road along Love Lane all those years ago.

The lounge area for guests to relax (left). The bathroom in one of the duplex rooms get plenty of natural light from the windows (right)

After acquiring the shophouse in 2011, it took them about three years to painstakingly restore the building; replacing rotted timber flooring and staircases, stripping down layers of paint on original teak wood screens and fixtures and scraping off layers of paint and cement on the walls to reveal the bare red bricks underneath.

“We were told that old pre-war houses in George Town needed to ‘breathe’ because of the moist ground these buildings are on. We either have to use breathable lime plaster on the walls or leave it bare so we chose the latter,” he said.

It proved a good choice as the bare red brick walls give the whole place a warmth of character that perfectly complements his simple teak wood and rattan furnishings.

You Le Yuen was finally completed early this year and it officially opened its doors to guests in mid-March.

The duplex room with the bedroom up in the attic

It only has four bedrooms; three are duplexes with separate floors for sitting rooms and a normal room facing the frontage of the building.

“Guests can even take up the whole house for events or for those with big families,” he said.

Operating more like a bed and breakfast, rather than a conventional hotel, guests have their own set of keys to the entrance of the building so that they can come and go as they like.

See Kit and his trusty assistant cum chef, Oli Nara Bahador, are only around during the day.

The pop-up restaurant

It may be a B&B, but You Le Yuen also doubles up as a pop-up restaurant where See Kit and Oli, who prefers to use the nickname Narish, try their hand at whipping up Indian fusion cuisine every once in a while for guests.

You Le Yuen is also a pop-up restaurant where guests need to make early reservations for Indian fusion cuisine

Pop-up restaurants, also known as supper clubs or private kitchens, are temporary restaurants that only serve up food upon early bookings by customers.

“We don’t have any menu except that our food is Indian-style cuisine so customers who want to eat here will only need to make a reservation a day ahead, tell us the number of pax and give some details such as food allergies, spiciness preference and other considerations while we will plan out the meal course for them,” See Kit said.

This means customers will get a surprise meal that the duo see fit to serve up; this could range from spicy curry dishes to tapas to fusion style dishes.

“We will cook several dishes that will be enough for the number of pax ordered by the customer so when they come, they will have a full meal all planned out for them,” he said.

You Le Yuen at night

See Kit and Narish fine-tuned their recipes and dishes through trial and error before they attempted the pop-up restaurant concept. They plan to expand the number of dishes if it proves popular.

“Maybe if there is more demand, we might widen our number of dishes and perhaps have set menus but for now, just like the B&B, we will keep it small, cosy and private,” he said.

You Le Yuen GPS: 5.420168, 100.337233 7, Love Lane, 10200 George Town, Penang www.youleyuen.com email: kit@youleyuen.com Tel: 04-2611817