Swisshorn Gold Palace, which was also known as The Golden House and the Hall of Gold, was in the city’s Kowloon area and it boasted a floor-to-ceiling gold design, including a gold horse-drawn chariot, gold chandeliers and life-size gold statues. Even the cutlery and crockery was gold.
But behind a door with engraved pharaohs, Greek gods and harp-playing angels, stood the palace’s crown jewel: a fully functional solid gold toilet.
After opening to the public in September 2006, it attracted thousands of visitors a day, mostly tourists from mainland China. The venue was also hired out for weddings and corporate events.
The man with the Midas touch behind the project was entrepreneur Lam Sai-wing who moved to Hong Kong from Guangdong province in southern China when he was 21 and went on to become chairman of the jewellery-making company Hang Fung Gold Technology.
Lam wanted to build a shrine to his boyhood hero, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, who had said that after the victory of socialism, gold should be used to make toilets.
“It has been my dream to build this since I was 16 years old. Now it has come true,” said Lam in a story published in the Post in 2002.
“I’m a capitalist with socialist principles,” he said at the time, adding: “This toilet is for the public, I wouldn’t have one at home.”
But in 2008, the economy - and Lam’s company - was hit by the fallout from the global financial crisis.
What wasn’t suffering, however, was the price of gold: in 2008 it had reached an all-time record of US$1,011 dollars an ounce, a rise of more than 50 per cent in just nine months.
Media reports said Lam was unable to resist the rush, and started melting down pieces from his beloved palace, raising cash to fuel his ambitious growth plans in China. He was reported to have said that he would never melt down his cherished commode.
But it all came crashing down on September 26, 2008, when Lam died suddenly at his luxury flat in Hong Kong. He was just 53.
“People close to Lam were taken by surprise because he had appeared healthy and played tennis recently,” read his obituary, published in the Post the following day.
The golden palace shut its doors. His death also shed light on the dire state of his company’s finances.
But the drama did not end there: several company executives were accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of gold bars.
A year after Lam’s death, the debt-ridden company was wound up. What happened to the golden toilet remains a mystery.
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