Mountain Lodge

Mountain Lodge was the former summer residence of the Governor of Hong Kong on Victoria Peak on the Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong. The second building was a two-storey Renaissance style home and was demolished in 1946. The site is now the Victoria Peak Garden, a public park. The Gate Lodge, which originally served as living quarters for the keeper of Mountain Lodge, is still extant.

A military sanatorium was proposed and established by Governor Hercules Robinson (1859–1865). A path was cut in December 1859 from what is now Robinson Road to the top of Victoria Peak, and the sanatorium was opened in the spring of 1862. It was well-built on the plateau below the flag-staff and 17 patients were sent there. However, the patients, like those in the rest of Hong Kong that year, did not improve and the military abandoned the site.

The site was then used for picnics until 1867

Granville and Matilda Sharp (after whom Matilda Hospital is named) who had long advocated the Peak as a healthy alternative to the lower levels, took a lease of the deserted sanatorium.

Governor MacDonnell (1866–1872), in 1867, purchased the building from the War Department and transformed it into the first Mountain Lodge—a bungalow to be built for the Governor's use. He had noted that the temperature was 14 °F (−10 °C) less than Central District in the summer.

There were three main buildings at the first Mountain Lodge. The Lodge itself, faced toward Pok Fu Lam on one side, and the lawn on the other. Two smaller buildings, rather like large European style cabins, and faced the lawn with their backs to the hillside. However, the lodge was severely damaged by a typhoon in the next year.

In 1873, Governor Kennedy (1872–1877) ordered to refurbish and extend the lodge, but it was again destroyed by a typhoon in 1874.

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