The pre-war house had relied entirely on a large staff for its comforts, and lacked modern facilities.

Housing consists mainly of late 19th century/early 20th century terraced cottages built for miners, some larger pre-war semi-detached houses, and the Garden Village housing estate.

Unperturbed development sparked concerns of the continued existence of heritage buildings and Penang's collection of pre-War houses (southeast Asia's largest), leading to more vigorous conservation efforts.

These new buildings were designed to have a very similar appearance to the pre-war houses.

Gurney Drive had many prominent pre-war houses, colonial bungalows and the College General Complex, which was once used to train Catholic priests in Thailand, India, China, Japan and Myanmar.

Opened in 2005, the collection is located in a four-storey pre-war house built in the Peranakan style on Cantonment Road.

In addition, many of the pre-war houses, originally intended for year-round residence, are now sold as recreational houses; many of these only have two bedrooms.

Successive admirers arrive at their small, but tasteful apartment in a pre-war house, but Sabina is interested in none of them.

The structure was installed between a pre-war house and an apartment building.

It was a street of complete desolation; not one pre-war house was standing, and a few shabby tents were pitched at the far end of the street.