How DB Got Here: 45 Years In The Making!
From a handful of residents to a community of more than 19,000, Discovery Bay has undergone a remarkable transformation. Ray Au looks back at the people, places and changes that shaped the home we know today
PHOTOGRAPHY (2026) B Y Andrew J.C. Spires
It may surprise you to know that in the late 1950s, Discovery Bay was a cattle ranch complete with a slaughterhouse. It was owned and inhabited by just one family, who have elected to remain anonymous. With beef supplies from mainland China severely curtailed, importing cattle to meet Hong Kong’s demand for fresh meat proved a lucrative business. The livestock were imported from the Northern Territory in Australia, and unloaded at DB Pier.
At this time, DB had little by way of a beach, just a rocky stretch of shoreline beside the pier. (Tai Pak Wan, in case you didn’t know, is man-made; it was created in the early 1980s, using 300,000 cubic metres of sand.) The sea was crystal-clear in the 1960s and teeming with fish, even close to the shore. There were pig farms on the hills – back then DB was as rural as the rest of Lantau, and an undeveloped Lantau at that.
Understanding how DB came to be a residential resort involves playing a game of Chinese Whispers; there’s a lot of rumour to sift through. The original owners and the Cha Group and even the Hong Kong Government are said to be key players. It’s clear that the owners devised a plan in the 1970s for a low-rise, traffic-free development, and that this never got off the ground. The associated scandal involves debts to the Soviet-government-controlled Moscow Narodny Bank, legal battles with the Hong Kong Government and just possibly a little Cold War espionage.
The head of the family who originally owned DB, who came up with the first plan for its development, is said to be depicted in John Le Carré’s spy novel The Honourable Schoolboy (1977). The honourable schoolboy of the title is Gerald Westerby, a British spy sent to Hong Kong.
One thing’s for sure, by 1977 DB was in the hands of Dr Cha Chi-ming, the late founder and chairman of HKR International. Unlike other large Hong Kong developments, everything in DB was built with private money, including the infrastructure. Even the government-operated fire and police stations were built by the developer.
In 1979, work started on the reservoir, core infrastructure and DB’s first proper ty project. Phase 1 Beach, Headland and Parkridge villages was launched in 1980. Back then, the asking price for a one-bedroom apartment at Parkridge was around HK$300,000; today, starter Parkridge flats sell for upwards of HK$3 million. In 1984, Phase 2 Midvale Village launched, and in 1986 Phase 3 Headland, Parkvale, Hillgrove and Parkridge villages. It’s incredible to think that DB now comprises 18 residential phases, with One Toscana forming part of Phase 19-1. From the get-go, resort-style living was prioritised. To this day, greenery makes up two-thirds of DB’s 650 hectares.
DB was a traffic-free zone in the 1980s – residents got about by internal bus, on foot or by golf cart; there was no external bus service, certainly no taxis. For DB’s first residents, ferries were the only external transport link to the city, running between DB South and Central. The service was not 24-hour: the last ferry home on Friday and Saturday nights was at 12.30am. Some may also remember the hovercrafts, known as sardine cans or submarines, because they were practically underwater when packed with passengers and supplies for the few businesses that were in DB at the time. Old timers recall playing cards on the way to Central – the trip took so long.
If you get annoyed when marine refuse causes the ferries to stall, spare a thought for the hovercraft passengers back then. If a vessel couldn’t be fixed at sea, another would come to rescue the passengers, which involved a pretty hairy transfer – commuters had to walk across a plank from one boat to the other.
The round-the-clock ferry service launched in 1986, and it has been a real boon, especially for those who recall the long dash down Blake’s Pier on a Friday or Saturday night, hoping to make the 12.30am ferry. Now, of course, we also have external buses to bring us home from Sunny Bay and Tung Chung, as well as taxis, which currently serve DB North only.
Shopping and dining have come a long way, too. We’ve gone from one store – DB’s first supermarket, a small PARKnSHOP, opened in DB South near the ferry pier in 1984 – to a shopping mall, two plazas lined with shops and restaurants, and even a hotel.
Until the opening of D’Deck and its many restaurants, there were few options to eat out in DB. The Residents Club (now DB Recreation Club) opened in 1982 and offered one of the few (and reputedly not very good) dining options in those early years. At this time, DB’s only other easily accessible eatery was a dai pai dong in Nim Shue Wan, frequented by many. If you wanted to find anyone (in DB) on a Friday or Saturday night, that’s where you looked first – people brought their own wine and paid around HK$35 each for 15 dishes or so.
From the get-go, DB attracted families but there was little in the way of organised entertainment for youngsters – no spor t s pitch and certainly no ice rink. The first young residents were a tightknit bunch who created their own fun – joyriding in their parents’ golf carts (which, local legend has it, explains why golf carts now have two keys), and hanging out at the rockpools, the barbecue pits (now La Costa) and at a DIY skate park (now Crestmont).
Recognising the community’s need for quality international education, the developer opened Discovery Bay International School (DBIS) in January 1983, just a month after the first residents moved in. The school was initially housed at DB Residents Club with just three students and two teachers. Student enrolment increased dramatically by the start of the new academic year in 1983, and the school moved to its current campus with 69 students. Today, DBIS educates around 1,200 students, from kindergarten through to secondary school and Sixth Form.
S.K.H. Wei Lun Primary School was founded in 1993 and built with funding from the Wai Lun Foundation. It is one of the schools under the St. John’s Primary Schools Board of Supervisors and is currently the only government-subsidised, full-day primary school in DB. At its inception, the school had only 63 students; now, the student population is nearly 500.
Plans to set up Discovery College (DC) as one of ESF’s first private schools began in 1999, and it opened at Yi Pak Bay in August 2008 with 450 students. A private independent school, DC now offers both primary and secondary education on one campus to some 1,400 students.
Despite decades of development, DB retains its village feel and strong sense of community. It has always attracted people from around the world, drawn by its green open spaces, outdoor lifestyle and multicultural mix. Residents are also active in making their voices heard, raising community concerns with the developer and the government. After all, a community is more than a place to live – it’s a place where people connect, understand and accept one another.
