Known originally as Caledonia Estate, it was built in the 1840s by one of Britain’s weathiest

families at the time – the Ramsdens – who had links with the British East India Company. Bringing
their immensely fat wallets to Malaysia (then part of the British “Straights Settlements”) they set
up a sugar cane plantation on the Malay peninsula, in Nibong Tebal, a stone’s throw from Penang
island. However, the economy moved on and the demand for sugar cane waned substantially in
the late 1800s, so the Ramsdens made the wise decision to make the shift to planting rubber
trees and consequently did pretty well out of it. The winds of change blew again in the early
1960s towards the rapidly growing palm oil industry, so once again they totally changed their
game and reaped huge profits. The mansion has remained throughout as a tremendous display
of wealth, and serving a variety of purposes. Living quarters, dancehall, an administrative building
for the plantation, and even the headquarters for the officers of the occupying Japanese army
during World War 2.

There are two huge rooms on each floor of each wing (north and south wing). Each room has 2
double doors on each of the east and west-facing sides plus another 1 or 2 on the north or south-
facing sides. That would be 11 double doors on each wing, multiple by 4 (2 floors x 2 wings) gives
44 double-leaved doors. Multiply by 2 (for the double doors) gives 88 doors (at least). Plus doors
to the bathrooms, kitchen, etc (I didn't visit whole building; I don't think anybody visited the back
of the ground floor) --- yes, that is possible. 99-door mansion it is.

.
A double door with glass panels on top for light to penetrate into the room. This is looking at the north-
wing from the 1st floor landing coming up the stairs.

For privacy, there are also double swing doors so that occupants can open the full-length doors while
letting in light and ventilation. The rooms have no windows! Maybe the doors serve as windows.

All the double doors lead on to the corridor which encircles the whole building. Well, actually the
corridor stops on the north and south wing to cater for the bathroom. This is the north-wing corridor
with the late afternoon sun shining from right of the picture (west).
 This is the short corridor facing north. The corridor does not encircle the whole building (as you can
see!). At the end of this corridor is the bathroom which is accessed from the back of the room through
another short corridor which has a stair leading down (see picture below). The bathroom is not attached
to the bedrooms.

So, in actual fact, there are corridors on all sides of the building. The building is said to have been built in
1916. Obviously, the architect knew how to cool the rooms down using deep shades even though
orientating the building to face east and west wasn't the best deal. On the other hand, the sea is on the
west so the sea breeze would have been lovely.
The Caledonia or the 99-door Mansion, looking at its northern end as you approach from the main road
(Jalan Byram). If you compare it to the humans on the ground, you can see that it is very imposing.