Whist Bungalow

Whist Bungalow or Pradeepa Hall (Sinhala: විස්ට් බංගලාව) is a 19th-century mansion located in Modara (Mutwal) in Colombo District, Sri Lanka. History This bungalow is said to have been built in 1804 by Henry Augustus Marshall (1776-1841), a British colonial administrator in British Ceylon for holding "whist parties" on Sunday evenings (De Silva & Chandrasekara, 2009; Manathunga, 2016). The next owner, Sir Richard Morgan (1821-1876) who was the Acting Chief Justice of Ceylon in 1874 improved the property and added a garden to it (De Silva & Chandrasekara, 2009). The ownership of the bungalow then passed among the hands of a few elite families including barrister Louis Pieris and V.A. Sugathadasa (Manathunga, 2016).  The property was used as a Police house and a tea store until it was taken over by the government and refurbished by the Urban Development Authority in 1980 (Manathunga, 2016). It was turned into a venue for public functions by Prime Minister R. Premadasa in…