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Obama's former Jakarta house draws attention
The small colonial-style house Barack Obama lived in as a child has received a steady stream of visitors ahead of the US presidential election, from potential buyers to a businessman who wants to turn it into the "Sweet Home Obama Bar".
- Agencies
- Published: 23:31 October 28, 2008
Jakarta: The small colonial-style house Barack Obama lived in as a child has received a steady stream of visitors ahead of the US presidential election, from potential buyers to a businessman who wants to turn it into the "Sweet Home Obama Bar".
Tata Aboe Bakar, the 78-year-old owner, is in little mood to sell, noting that the property, sequestered between a large mosque and park in an upscale neighbourhood of the Indonesian capital, has been in the family since 1939.
Much, he said, would depend on the price.
The two-bedroom pavilion Obama lived in - initially built as a guesthouse - would be sold with the main, sprawling residence next door and the 1,200 square metre plot of land. Together, they have an estimated market value of $3 million (Dh11 million). And that does not take into account the potential Obama-factor if the Democratic presidential candidate wins on November 4.
Aboe Bakar says one broker claimed a US Embassy official was ready to pay five times its worth if that happened, though Tristram Perry, the embassy's public diplomacy officer, said he was not aware of any such offer.
Obama moved to Jakarta with his American mother and Indonesian stepfather in 1967, spending the first two years in another humble home, where chickens and ducks used to cackle in the backyard and two baby crocodiles slithered around in a fenced-off pond.
Lost poodle
They relocated to the small red-tile roofed pavilion with art deco windows on Taman Amir Hamzah Street in 1970 when Obama was 9 years old and stayed there for the next two years.
Aboe Bakar has few stories to tell about Obama as a child, except the time his poodle ran away, never to be seen again.
"Oh, he cried for two days," the former Navy admiral said, as he showed off a long list of visitors who have knocked on his door in recent weeks.
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