Visiting the Heritage Home of Bangkok's Original Entrepreneur Nai Lert
I recently flew into Bangkok for the day to attend a wedding at Nai Lert Park Heritage Home.
The heritage home sits in lush parkland right in the heart of Bangkok's ritzy Chidlom district. Old trees tower over manicured lawns hemmed in by high-end hotels and shopping malls. It's beautiful. I came to learn that Nai Lert is the reason this neighborhood is what it is.
Born Lert Sreshthaputra in 1872, by the age of 20, Nai Lert had already made partner at Fraser and Neave, a regional soft drink conglomerate. At 22, Nai Lert opened a store and, among other things, built Thailand's first ice factory.
It was 35 degrees at 2pm on the day I was in Bangkok. I can only imagine what it was like at the turn of the century without air conditioning and iced drinks! One account by the scholar Phraya Anuman Rajdhon said at the time that most people who had never seen ice in Thailand simply refused to believe frozen water was a real thing.
The ice factory was just the start. From his base on Charoen Krung Road he imported lemonade from Singapore, along with whiskey, wine, cheese, ham, coffee machines, sewing machines, and bicycles. He built a seven story shopping center that was the tallest in Bangkok when it was completed in 1927, housing his retail empire, a European-style bar, a hotel called the Hotel de la Paix, and more.
Nai Lert didn't stop at ice and imports. He launched Bangkok's first bus service, white with a simple exterior, using what look to be imported engines. He also imported European cars, including Fiat 508 Balillas, one of which a plaque at the Heritage Home says he drove around Bangkok accompanied by his pet leopard.
During the Second World War, Bangkok was a target for Allied bombing. Aircraft aiming for the nearby Makkasan railway station hit Nai Lert's property with 22 bombs, destroying a smaller front house entirely.
With a beverage maker's gift for making lemonade out of lemons, Nai Lert turned the largest bomb crater into a lotus pond. It's still there. Deep, serene, and beautiful. The grounds that the lotus pond sit in were later turned into a public park.
Nai Lert Park Heritage Home is definitely worth a visit! Tours of the home are available a few days a week and good coffee can be had nearby. Check the official website here
