The most curious thing about this colonial 175 year-old building on the waterfront at Stanley is that it’s only been standing here for 20 years. Before it stood here, it was on a prime site in Central, the same site that was being eyed up for the new Bank of China. In the face of huge development pressure, Murray House was dismantled into 3000 labelled pieces, put into storage and then re-assembled at Stanley - a kind of architectural putting out to pasture.
The other intriguing thing about this building is that it has had two exorcisms. During WWII when the Japanese invaded and occupied Hong Kong, the building was headquarters for the notorious Kempetei, the Japanese intelligence service, and it became a place of torture and executions. Not surprisingly, many locals later came to feel that the building was haunted. In the 1963, office workers complained that ghosts were defacing blueprints and damaging electronic office machines. 56 Buddhist priests were called in to pacify and exorcise the spirits. It did the trick for about 10 years, when a second exorcism was performed in 1974 and was televised.
Today, Murray House stands beside the water and pier at Stanley and houses shops and restaurants so you can freely go in for a look around.