A house that
has been
many things.
Hotel Johan is a small hotel of eight rooms in a 17th-century shophouse on the banks of the Melaka River. We opened in 2019 after three quiet years of restoration. This is a brief account of how that came to be.
We found the building in 2016 — a Peranakan shophouse with a sagging roof and a courtyard full of bicycles. It had been a tailor's shop, then a print-room, then nothing for a long time. The river ran behind it the way rivers do, patiently.
We had no plan to open a hotel. We wanted a quiet place to read in the afternoons and walk to Jonker in the mornings. But the house was too large for that, and too patient — it asked to be more.
So we spent three years putting it back together with a team of carpenters from Melaka and Penang, two conservators, and a tiler who could match the old Peranakan ceramic by eye. We kept what we could. We replaced what we had to. Eight rooms, and a kitchen.
From an empty shophouse
to eight quiet rooms.
Ten milestones from finding the building in 2016 to where we are today. Scroll or use the arrows.
A short list, mostly about not rushing.
Few rooms, well kept.
Eight rooms is the most we can look after by hand. We have no plans to grow. A small hotel can be many things a large hotel cannot.
The materials of the place.
Cedar, hand-thrown ceramic, lime plaster, brass. Everything we put back was made by someone whose name we know.
Quiet, mostly.
No piped music, no televisions, no front-desk bell. Just the river, the kitchen at breakfast, and birds in the courtyard.
Letters, by hand.
We answer every message ourselves. Reservations are confirmed by a person. We think this is worth keeping.
Who keeps the house.
A hotel of eight rooms is a hotel of conversations. These are the people you will most likely meet.
Founded the hotel with his sister. Trained as an architect; cooks breakfast on Sundays.
Runs the kitchen and the books. Knows every guest's name before they arrive.
Built the cedar tubs and the loft stair. Comes by twice a month to look after the joinery.
Looks after the rooms. Her grandmother lived two doors down in the 1950s.
Three things we are quietly proud of.
Most of the restoration is invisible — wiring inside the walls, plumbing under the floor. These are the parts you can see.
The river-side shutters
We found the original shutters under three layers of paint. A specialist in Penang stripped them by hand over four months. The hinges are new; the wood is older than the country.
The Peranakan threshold tiles
The threshold tiles were broken when we arrived. A tiler in Geographer's Cafe matched the glaze from a single intact piece, and made forty new ones to replace the lost. You cannot tell which is which.
The cedar tubs
Each tub is built from a single piece of Hokkaido cedar, jointed with traditional carpentry — no nails, no glue. They are sealed with a wax made of beeswax and rice oil. They smell, faintly, of forests.
We are not interested in being the largest hotel in Melaka, or the most fashionable. We would like to be one of the quietest, and one of the most carefully kept. That is enough.
A few kind notices.
“Among the most carefully restored small hotels in the Straits — eight rooms, no concessions.”
“A quiet, considered new arrival on the Melaka River. The bath alone is worth the journey.”
“Hotel Johan is the rare small hotel that feels neither styled nor staged. It feels lived in.”
“An eight-room hotel that has chosen, deliberately, to never become a brand.”