Coney Island Singapore history begins long before today’s cycling trails, beaches and wildlife. The island off Punggol is also known as Pulau Serangoon; in the 1930s and 1940s it was associated with the Tiger Balm brothers Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par and was known as Haw Par Island. A 600-square-metre beach villa was built there, and the island later passed through another remarkable phase as a proposed island resort before becoming public recreational and ecological space.

For readers searching Coney Island Singapore history, Pulau Serangoon history, Haw Par Island, Coney Island Punggol history or the story of the Haw Par Beach Villa, the useful timeline is straightforward: private island ownership in the 1930s and 1940s, resort ambitions in the 1950s, acquisition by the Port of Singapore Authority in 1972, reclamation that enlarged the island from roughly 13 hectares to about 100 hectares, and reopening as Coney Island Park in 2015.

Did you know? the island was not always imagined primarily as a nature park. In the 1950s, businessman Ghulam Mahmood attempted to develop it as what heritage accounts call Singapore’s first island health resort, with a dance hall, restaurant, bar and seaside accommodation. Modern Coney Island is therefore not a single untouched landscape. It is a place that moved through private wealth, leisure, reclamation, public ownership and ecological restoration.

The Crazy-Rich Idea: The Most Valuable Version of an Island May Be the One You Do Not Fully Build

An island beside a growing town is tempting.

You can imagine hotels.

Private villas.

Marinas.

Restaurants.

Attractions.

Coney Island passed through several of those ambitions.

Yet one of its greatest present-day values comes from what remains relatively undeveloped.

That gives Crazy Rich Punggol a different definition of wealth:

sometimes the richest use of land is preserving enough ecological complexity that the city gains something it cannot easily manufacture later.

Pulau Serangoon Came Before “Coney Island”

The island is formally known as Pulau Serangoon.

That older name matters because historical records may not use the modern recreational name.

As with Poongul, Ponggol and Punggol, archival research becomes much stronger when readers search multiple historical names rather than one current label.

This is especially important because island names in Singapore have changed over time, and NParks’ Flora of Singapore notes that the name “Coney Island” itself had once been applied elsewhere before becoming associated with the northern island.

The Haw Par Brothers Turned the Island Into a Private Retreat

In the 1930s and 1940s, the island was linked to Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par, the businessmen behind Tiger Balm.

Heritage records describe the island during this period as Haw Par Island.

The brothers built a substantial seaside bungalow there—the structure now known as the Haw Par Beach Villa.

The villa gives the island an unusually direct physical link to one of Singapore’s most famous business families.

This is not the same building as Haw Par Villa at Pasir Panjang.

The names share the same family connection but refer to different places.

The Beach Villa Was About 600 Square Metres

National Heritage Board records describe the Coney Island beach villa as roughly 600 square metres.

That size matters because it tells us the island was not merely visited casually.

A substantial private residence had been established there.

The island therefore belonged to a wider early-20th-century tradition of wealthy families using Singapore’s coastal margins for retreat, leisure and seaside living.

That links it conceptually with Matilda House, although the two properties had very different histories and settings.

1950s: The Island Becomes a Resort Experiment

In the 1950s, businessman Ghulam Mahmood tried to develop the island into a leisure destination.

Heritage accounts describe plans and facilities associated with an island health resort, including:

• a dance hall;
• a restaurant;
• a bar;
• seaside accommodation.

This tells us that Punggol’s edge was already being marketed as an escape from the city decades before modern waterfront lifestyle branding.

The geography was the product.

You travelled because the island felt separate.

The Resort Story Connects Coney Island With Old Punggol’s Wider Leisure Economy

At roughly the same broad period, Punggol Point had its own recreation culture.

There were boatels.

Water-skiing.

Seafood restaurants.

Ponggol Rest House.

Fishing and boating.

Coney Island was therefore not an isolated leisure experiment.

It belonged to a broader northern-waterfront culture.

For that complementary story, continue with Crazy Rich Punggol | Boatels, Kelong Nightlife, Water-Skiing and the Luxury of a Waterfront Playground.

1972: Public Ownership Changes the Island’s Future

NParks records that in 1972, the Port of Singapore Authority purchased the island for recreational development.

This is a major hinge.

Private island history gives way to public planning.

Once public agencies control land, the range of possible uses changes.

The question becomes not only:

what can this island earn?

but also:

what should this island do for the city?

The Island Grew From About 13 Hectares to Around 100 Hectares

National Heritage Board records that Coney Island originally covered around 13 hectares before reclamation expanded it to roughly 100 hectares.

That is an extraordinary increase.

The island people visit today is therefore physically much larger than its earlier form.

This links directly with the wider transformation of Punggol’s coast.

For the reclamation sequence, read Crazy Rich Punggol | Land Reclamation, a Changing Coastline and the Luxury of Making Land.

Coney Island Also Worked as Maritime Infrastructure

The island’s value was not only recreational or ecological.

National Heritage Board notes that Coney Island acted as a natural breakwater opposite the old Punggol Fishing Port.

That gave vessels a degree of protection.

So the same island could be:

• private retreat;
• resort experiment;
• breakwater;
• reclamation landscape;
• nature park.

That is exactly why land should not be reduced to one function.

2015: The Island Reopens as Coney Island Park

Coney Island Park opened to the public in 2015.

The design deliberately emphasised ecological sustainability and a rustic character rather than intensive urban landscaping.

NParks’ current park information lists mangroves, coastal forests, grasslands, beaches and a wide range of birdlife and other fauna.

The park is therefore not simply “old nature left alone”.

It includes deliberate ecological restoration and management.

The Nature Park Is a Designed Decision, Not an Absence of Planning

This is one of the most important distinctions in the whole story.

When a city leaves land relatively wild, people sometimes assume planners simply did nothing.

Coney Island shows the opposite.

Ecological restoration requires decisions about:

• native plant communities;
• habitat protection;
• visitor access;
• trail location;
• wildlife disturbance;
• shoreline management;
• what not to build.

Not building is still a planning choice.

The Haw Par Beach Villa Survives, but It Is Not an Open House Museum

The old villa remains one of the island’s strongest historical anchors.

But visitors should not treat it as a public building they can freely enter.

NParks explicitly instructs visitors not to enter the Haw Par Beach Villa.

That makes the building an interesting conservation object:

you can preserve historical presence without converting every surviving structure into an attraction.

A Geography Lesson: Islands Change Too

Students often imagine islands as fixed shapes.

Coney Island gives a direct counterexample.

If reclamation expands an island from roughly 13 hectares to around 100 hectares, then:

• shoreline length changes;
• habitat area changes;
• water channels change;
• access possibilities change;
• its role in the surrounding coast changes.

An island is not only a dot on a map.

It is a changing landform inside a changing coastal system.

A Mathematics Lesson: Thirteen to One Hundred Is Not a Small Expansion

Students can model the scale change immediately.

Using the rounded heritage figures:

• original area ≈ 13 hectares;
• expanded area ≈ 100 hectares;
• increase ≈ 87 hectares.

They can then calculate percentage increase and discuss why percentage language can make a physical transformation easier to understand.

But they should also label the figures as approximate rather than pretending the rounded heritage numbers are survey coordinates.

An Economics Lesson: The Highest-Bid Use Is Not Always the Highest-Value Use

Imagine the island only as developable land.

You might maximise:

• hotel rooms;
• restaurants;
• private residences;
• commercial floor area.

But public value may come from something harder to price:

• biodiversity;
• cooling;
• education;
• recreation;
• coastal habitat;
• mental restoration;
• city-scale ecological continuity.

This is why land-value analysis should not be confused with land-price analysis.

An English Lesson: “Wild” and “Untouched” Are Not the Same Word

Modern Coney Island feels wild.

That does not make it untouched.

The island has experienced:

• private ownership;
• building;
• resort activity;
• reclamation;
• public planning;
• ecological restoration.

So the more accurate phrase is often rustic, ecologically managed or relatively wild, depending on the context.

Language matters because “untouched nature” erases the very history this article is trying to recover.

The Biodiversity Story Has Its Own Pillar

This page owns the historical question:

How did Pulau Serangoon move from private island and resort ambition to public ecological space?

For habitats, wildlife and the planning question of how Punggol can grow without losing the island’s ecological value, continue with Crazy Rich Punggol | Coney Island, Biodiversity and the Luxury of Leaving Nature Wild.

For current opening hours, entrances and practical visiting information, use the separate Coney Island Park Guide.

Why This Island Matters to Punggol’s Identity

Punggol is often described as new.

Coney Island makes that description feel incomplete.

The island connects:

• the old Straits landscape;
• wealthy private retreat;
• post-war leisure ambition;
• reclamation;
• public planning;
• modern biodiversity protection.

It is therefore a miniature history of Punggol itself.

First productive and private.

Then developmental.

Then ecological and public.

Evidence Anchors

• National Heritage Board — Waterfront Living at Punggol
• National Heritage Board — History of Punggol
• NParks — Coney Island Park

The crazy-rich Punggol lesson is that Coney Island became more valuable by changing what kind of value it was expected to produce. Private retreat became resort experiment. Reclaimed island became public asset. And a place once imagined through buildings is now prized largely for the life allowed to remain between them.