Baba Nyonya Heritage Museum, Peranakan cultural museum in Malacca, Malaysia.
The Baba Nyonya Heritage Museum is a single two-storey shophouse built in 1896, with a pale peach facade and three tall arched windows on the upper floor, each fitted with dark green louvered shutters and carved panels. Stucco moldings and small corbels sit beneath the roof eaves, and a green tiled awning roof on carved-capital columns shelters a red-framed doorway with dark wooden doors bearing gold Chinese characters. A black sign with gold characters hangs above the door.
The building was constructed in 1896 by Chan Kim Lay's great-grandfather on Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock, a street recognized for its wealthy residences. The houses reflect the height of Malacca's trading prosperity in the late 1800s.
The museum occupies the ancestral home of the Chan family, opened to the public by Chan Kim Lay in 1985–1986. Its rooms hold the family's own carved woodwork, furniture and porcelain, used by Malacca's Baba-Nyonya community in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The name Peranakan refers to the locally born descendants of Chinese settlers.
The best conditions for visiting are during daylight hours and early in the day when rooms are less crowded. Comfortable shoes are recommended since the tour involves climbing stairs and navigating multiple levels.
The house was built in 1896 by the great-grandfather of Chan Kim Lay, who opened it as a museum in 1986; the Chinese source dates the opening to March 1985. Chan Kim Lay was the fourth generation of his family to live there, and the street's wealthy residences earned it the name "Millionaire's Row".
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