As a child, he was kicked out of one of Macao’s finest hotels and vowed to take it over. Today, he’s the owner

CNN —

Simon Sio grew up in humble surroundings in the heart of Macao, living in an old building directly across from what was then the city’s grandest accommodation, Hotel Central.

Opened in 1928, it became a prestigious gathering place for celebrities and diplomats in the following decades.

In the 1960s, young Sio would playfully sneak in – it was one of the few places in the former Portuguese colony with air conditioning, a vast, luxurious space compared to the old tenement buildings that surrounded it. But one day, he was thrown out.

“As a kid, I didn’t know better,” Sio tells CNN. “I pointed at the hotel and swore I’d buy it someday.”

Though countless children around the world have made similar vows in the face of perceived injustice, Sio is one of the few to actually follow through with one.

The businessman, now 65, founded his own real estate development company, Lek Hang Group, in 1991. Fast forward to 2024 and Sio could recently be found cutting the ribbon to officially reopen the 96-year-old Hotel Central as its new owner.

But he didn’t buy the hotel out of spite. Sio says he wanted to restore a piece of Macao’s disappearing history, an issue that’s close to his heart.

The 96-year-old Hotel Central, once an iconic landmark in the heart of Macao, reopened this year.

The grand dame of Macao

In more recent years, luxurious resort complexes and skyscrapers have continuously popped up around Macao. In contrast, the sprawling alleys and old architecture along Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro, affectionately called San Ma Lo (translated as ‘The New Road’ in Cantonese) might not look all that exciting today.

But when the road first opened in 1920, it instantly became the city’s most important thoroughfare. Hotel