The Lakehouse, Pahang

Named after the British Surveyor Sir William Cameron who mapped out the region in 1885, the Cameron Highlands cooler climate made it a welcome retreat for homesick colonialists from the hot and humid climate of the lowlands of British Malaya. By 1931, the road up to the highlands was completed, and bungalows and cottages were built, many in a mock Tudor style to remind the expatriates of their faraway homeland.

 

Foster's Lakehouse by comparison, was a much later development, a residence constructed in the late sixties. Located in Habu, between the townships of Ringlet and Tanah Rate, the Lakehouse was and still is a charming mock Tudor building located on a commanding hilltop overlooking the Sultan Abu Bakar lake.

 

The late Colonel Stanley Jack Foster, a retired British Army Officer, was the original builder and owner of The Lakehouse in 1966. The construction of the building took four years and in 1970, the property started its operations as a boutique hotel.

Between 1970 and 1977, Colonel Foster was running both The Lakehouse and The Smokehouse in Tanah Rata. In 1977, he sold The Smokehouse to a local businessman but continued to manage The Lakehouse till his demise in December 1984. As the colonel's grown up children were not interested in running a hotel, The Lakehouse was then put on sale and in 1989, HPL Hotels & Resorts took over the property and has been managing it since then.

 

Over recent years, Cameron Highlands has been increasingly over-developed for mass tourism and agriculture, with many large and uninteresting hotels blotting the countryside as well as an over abundance of vegetable farms with their visually unappealing sheds and shacks all over the hillsides.

 

Therefore places like the Lakehouse fulfil a need, providing a smaller and more intimate scale of accommodation, a connection to the past as well as preserving a slice of England in tropical Malaysia.

 

 

 

Even if you do not chose to stay at the Lakehouse, dropping by for an Afternoon Tea is a great way to experience and appreciate this quaint little building and just for a moment, imagine yourself as being not in Malaysia but somewhere in England.

 

 

 

 

 

For the quintessential feel of old Cameron's, a visit to the Lakehouse is recommended.

The Lakehouse, Cameron Highlands

Address:  30th Mile, Ringlet, 39200 Cameron Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia 

Tel: +605 495 6152  

Fax: +605 495 6213