When we first saw Hillcrest Villa, we were SO excited because there were so many things about it that were perfect for us. We saw ourselves enjoying our house by the poolside, with room for the kids to run around safely, and in the most perfect location for us ever.
We have 4 kids, ages ranging from 14 to 5. We have 3 girls and a boy, and one of our girls goes to RGPS, which is next door to Hillcrest Villa. No roads to cross, and you can literally wake up 10 mins before the bell rings and still make it on time with breakfast in your belly.
Our kids love the water, and our house is one of only 9 homes right by the lap pool. We were looking forward to coming out our front door, walking less than 10 steps and just dangling our feet in the water.
All traffic going into the estate is underground, so our kids are free to run in the estate and enjoy the facilities in safety.
Being right next to the main road means we have about 10 buses that take us direct to Toa Payoh, Orchard Road, Marina Square, Hougang, Chinatown, Ponggol. And we’re right before Watten Estate and Shelford, which means we have first picks of taxis coming down Bukit Timah Road, so having to call for a cab ahead of time was unnecessary.
The house itself is a perfect size. Two kids comfortably in each of the two bedrooms on the second floor, leaving us to convert the 2 bedrooms on the 3rd floor into one big room with a balcony for ourselves and all our computers. Basement was to be our games & TV room, with plans for a foosball or pool table, but we think it may be an area for our kids to mess around with all kinds of musical instruments.
It was so exciting to dream up how life would be like in our new home.
And then the bombshell…
Our son has DMD (Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy). His muscles are getting weak and it will only get worse as he gets older. A 4-storey house is certainly NOT the ideal home for anyone having to deal with DMD. But we thought that we could deal with it… maybe for just a couple of years till his younger sisters were a little older. We asked him how he felt about living in a house that had that many stairs.
He said positively, “It’s OK… I will just crawl up the stairs lah”.
That one statement took our breath away. His solution to getting up and down the stairs in this otherwise perfect home was to crawl the stairs one by one. In other words, he was prepared to let us have OUR dream home and not his.
Our hearts were broken. We decided then that when the completion of the project came along, we would either put up the house up for sale, or to rent it out. We just knew that we could not live there the way we had planned to. What made it worse for us was to see it being built and take shape as we passed by everyday to pick up our daughter from RGPS.
We’ve since made our peace and have decided to let go of our home and to refocus ourselves and our kids on another place. Financially it would also allow us to allocate more to the long-term care of our son.
And so our search for a perfect home continues. We know it will never be as perfect, especially for the Raffles Girls in our family, but we’ll just have to move on.
When we bought Hillcrest Villa, we chose one of the best units in Hillcrest Villa. It is one of only 9 houses that is right by the lap pool AND has an unblocked view of the greenery. Almost all the other homes in the estate look into someone else’s home. I am convinced that if you have a family like ours, you’d be just as excited as we were about the possibilities living at Hillcrest Villa has to offer.