House of Tugu,
Old Town Jakarta
The Dream of Anhar
Tugu Hotels began as a deeply personal journey for founder Anhar Setjadibrata, who started collecting Indonesian antiques in the 1970s while working as a medical representative. Traveling across Java and other Indonesian islands, he discovered many cultural relics being discarded as old-fashioned and set out to preserve these treasures. His passion for art and history culminated in the creation of Tugu Hotels—a group of boutique museum hotels that combine Indonesia’s rich cultural heritage with luxurious hospitality.
Hotel Tugu Bali: A romantic retreat by Canggu Beach, offering a cultural journey through forgotten Indonesian legends, with each room filled with rare antiques.
Hotel Tugu Lombok: Located on a pristine white-sand beach, it blends natural beauty with Indonesia’s history, showcasing palm groves and views of Mount Rinjani
Hotel Tugu Blitar: The oldest hotel in Indonesia, set in a colonial mansion dating back to the 1850s, offering guests a glimpse into the grandeur of East Java’s past.
These properties have earned Tugu Hotels global recognition, with multiple wins in the Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards, including their recent fourth win, ranking among the top 10 best hotels in Southeast Asia.
The Forbidden House of Jakarta (previously Batavia)
Circa 1866, when the father of Oei Tiong Ham went to see a clairvoyant in Batavia to hear about his son’s future, he passed Jalan Kali Besar Street. He was surprised to see a beautiful mansion complex with a heavy, closed iron gate.
The house had a view of the large river in front, with vast, lush gardens of dozens of mature coconut trees, squirrels with fluffy tails running up and down their trunks. Oei Tjie Sien (Oei Tiong Ham’s father) stood there for a while, in admiration of this very tropical atmosphere provided by this house and the quantity of coconut trees in its gardens.
Tall coconut trees also lined the wide river in front of the house, although not as many as in the gardens of this house. Oei Tjie Sien just realized how thirsty he was under the scorching midday sun, when the guard of the gate offered him a young coconut from one of the trees.
Tjie Sien gratefully drank the coconut water and promised himself that one day when he became a wealthy man, he would acquire this house.
He asked the kind guard to give him two small coconut trees as well for him to bring back to plant in his house in Simongan, Semarang. Whenever he was thirsty, he asked his Chinese helper to climb one the trees and get him a fresh young coconut. The helper had been told strictly that only Oei Tjie Sien and Oei Tiong Ham were allowed to ask him to pick the coconuts from these trees.
When I stepped foot on the dilapidated building on this Kalibesar Barat Street in Jakarta Jakarta, only one coconut tree was left in its back yard. It died a few years after.
To keep this memory alive, of Oei Tjie Sien and how much he had loved these coconut trees, they had been recreated along the corridor leading to his room. The remains of that last living tree have been scattered throughout the grounds of this building under the recreated trees, towards the corridor to the “Raja Gula”room dedicated to his son, Oei Tiong Ham.
Stories
The Rockefeller
of Asia Room
The Kasinem Room
The Harmonie Hall
The Kapitan Hall
Kali Macan Room
Babah Koffie by Kawisari
Jajaghu Restaurant
The Raden Saleh Room
De Tiger
Bar by THe Pool
