All photos by Cheryl Tang

Sentosa. Home of ZoukOut (RIP), the orientation Beach Day, and the one that replaced Escape Theme Park. But it’s also home to hundreds who live in the niche of Sentosa Cove.

To understand how it feels to be there, close your eyes. Bring your fingers to your temple to sculpt your anger as you picture peak hour Singapore. Channel your indignation as you imagine suffocating in a sweaty, oily morass of humans.

Sentosa Cove is the direct opposite of that.

“It feels like a holiday everyday,” Joshua Rawlings tells me. “It’s very lavish and relaxing you know? It’s close to the ocean and it’s very open. Very breathable, away from the hustle and bustle of the city.”

Australian-born and studying in Spain, Singapore has been Joshua’s home country for over 10 years. His family moved to Sentosa Cove in early 2015.

“It is very extravagant,” he laughs when I ask him what the average Singaporean would think of the place. “Never anywhere else in the world have I seen such a small area with such a high density of sports cars and unbelievably massive, modern houses.”

Joshua continues to describe architecture straight out of a present day Great Gatsby. One particular billionaire seems to have a penchant for the capricious: of the five houses he owns, one of them resembles a pirate ship, purportedly designed by people who worked on Pirates of the Caribbean. It houses movie props straight from Disney.

But the pièce de résistance of his residential empire is his “Egyptian-themed spaceship house,” as Joshua describes. It functions as a personal art gallery for the billionaire, accommodating works as priceless as a Picasso.

“Next to each piece there’s a button. If you press it, you’ll hear Morgan Freeman narrating about the piece,” Joshua grins. “Isn’t that cool?”