€408.50 for 1 Night
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€408.50/ Night
24/7 Support
Looking for help choosing or for a property we don't list? Message our Private Rates Concierge on WhatsApp for member rates and insider knowledge on the right stay
An owner-run 11-room heritage boutique hotel in a restored 1903 Straits-Chinese shophouse in the heart of UNESCO Georgetown, with a Venetian restaurant downstairs.
Collection:
Need To Know
- 11 individually themed rooms, in a 1903 shophouse
- In the heart of UNESCO Georgetown
- Il Bacaro Italian restaurant and bar on the ground floor
- Rooftop terrace and a guest library
- A heritage building: stairs and no lift
- Adults and older children suit it best; no pool
- A la carte breakfast included; often fully booked
Check in - Check out
Check in from 14:00; check out before 12:00.
We Love
- The building — a restored 1903 Straits-Chinese corner shophouse, brought back by its owners with Peranakan tiles, teak and antiques, each of the 11 rooms individually themed and named.
- Il Bacaro — the Italian restaurant downstairs, run by the Italian co-owner, serving Venetian cicchetti, house-made pasta and wood-fired pizza, and the hotel's a la carte breakfast.
- The owners — Nardya and Roberto, a husband-and-wife team who left London hospitality to restore the house and run it themselves, and whose hands-on welcome guests single out.
- The touches — a rooftop terrace for an evening aperitivo, a library, full-size natural toiletries, fresh milk in the fridge and a homemade sweet left in the room each afternoon.
- The location — in the heart of UNESCO Georgetown, a short walk from Little India, Love Lane, the clan houses, the street art and some of the best street food in Malaysia.
Key Features
Book Your Stay at Campbell House Penang
€408.50 for 1 Night
Location
Address
106, Lebuh Campbell, George Town, 10100 George Town, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
Travel Info
Campbell House is at 106 Lebuh Campbell in the heart of George Town, walkable to Little India, the clan houses and the street art. It is a heritage shophouse with stairs and no lift. Penang airport is about 30 minutes away; public parking nearby.
Nearby Places
Campbell House Penang
250m
Last Updated: 2026-06-24
Expert Review
Origins
George Town, the capital of Penang, is one of Southeast Asia's great heritage cities — a dense, walkable grid of Straits-Chinese shophouses, clan temples, mosques and colonial churches that earned the old centre UNESCO World Heritage status in 2008. It is also one of the region's best food cities, where hawker stalls, century-old kopitiams and Chinese, Malay and Indian kitchens sit side by side. Campbell Street, in the thick of it, has worn many faces — pilgrims' lodging house, sailors' stop, red-light "Flower Street", and in the 1950s Penang's smartest shopping run.
Campbell House occupies a three-storey corner shophouse here, built in 1903 and, by the 2000s, derelict — empty for seven years and stripped of most of its features. Roberto Dreon and Nardya Wray, a husband-and-wife team who had met working in London hospitality, bought it sight unseen in 2008, left their corporate careers, and spent the next years restoring it with local craftsmen — preserving the original structure while rebuilding it as a hotel, with Peranakan floor tiles, teak and a careful mix of antique and contemporary pieces. They opened the doors in 2011.
The result is an intimate, owner-run hotel of 11 individually designed rooms, each named and themed, with four-poster beds, claw-foot tubs and stained glass among the recurring touches. Downstairs is Il Bacaro, the couple's Italian restaurant — Roberto is Italian — serving Venetian cicchetti, house-made pasta and pizza, and doubling as the breakfast room. Beyond the rooms there is a rooftop terrace for a sundowner, a library, and a string of small kindnesses — an afternoon sweet left in the room, fresh milk in the fridge, full-size natural toiletries — that guests return for. It suits travellers who want heritage, character and a personal welcome over the facilities of a large hotel.
Top Secret
Order from Il Bacaro up to the roof terrace. The hotel's third-floor terrace, with its fans and comfortable seating, is the place to be at dusk — and because the kitchen is the hotel's own, you can have an aperitivo and a plate of cicchetti, or a full dinner, brought up to you there. It is a quiet, breezy perch above the Georgetown streets, and a fine way to end a day on foot in the heat before heading back out for the night markets.
The Review
Campbell House is the kind of small, owner-run hotel that defines what a heritage boutique stay should be — and among the most characterful places to stay in George Town. A restored 1903 Straits-Chinese shophouse with just 11 rooms, run hands-on by its owners Nardya and Roberto, it trades the scale and facilities of a city hotel for something rarer: genuine character, a personal welcome, and a sense of staying in a much-loved house rather than a property.
The pleasures are specific. The rooms are individually themed and full of antiques, the location is in the very heart of UNESCO Georgetown — street art, clan houses and some of Malaysia's best street food all within a short walk — and the breakfast and dinner come from Il Bacaro, the owners' genuinely good Italian restaurant downstairs, which has a place in the Michelin Guide. The small touches — the rooftop terrace, the library, the afternoon sweets, the rope-and-pulley that hauls luggage up the stairwell — are what guests remember, along with a team that is warm to the point of making people feel like returning friends.
The honest notes are inherent to the building, and worth knowing. This is a heritage shophouse: there is no lift, the stairs are steep, and it is not suited to guests with significant mobility needs; the hardwood floors and central location mean some sound carries, between rooms and from the street, so light sleepers should pack earplugs; and there is no pool, which makes it better for couples and older families than for young children. None of that is a flaw so much as the nature of the place. For heritage, food and a personal welcome in the heart of George Town, it is hard to better.
