Saturday Travel Feature
The Jim Thompson House
Bangkok, Thailand

"Jim Thompson or James Harrison Wilson Thompson was born in Greenville, Delaware in 1906. He attended public schools in Wilmington, went on to boarding school at St. Paul's and attended Princeton University, the family university, from 1924 to 1928.

"Although Thompson had a keen interest in art, he chose to become an architect and went on to study architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a practicing architect in New York City until 1940.



"With the escalation of the war in Europe in the early 1940s, Thompson volunteered for service in the United States Army, an important turning point in his life.

"During the Second World War, Thompson was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a move which offered him an opportunity to see more of the world. Thompson as a member of an OSS group was assigned to work with French forces in North Africa. His assignments also took him into Italy, France and Asia.

To prepare for his mission, Thompson undertook rigorous training in jungle survival. He completed the course successfully. However the war ended abruptly as Thompson and the other OSS men were en route to Bangkok. A few weeks later, he assumed the duties of OSS station chief. In late 1946, he received orders to return to the States to receive his military discharge.

"Thompson was confident that with peace restored and the expansion of air travel, there would be a significant increase in leisure travel to the Far East. Upon their arrival in the capital, these travelers would need acceptable accommodation. Few hotels in Bangkok could then even be considered of international standard. Only one had an ideal location -- the old Oriental, a former palace overlooking the Chao Phraya River that flowed through the capital.



"It was a meeting place for travelers and a social center for the foreign community. Charlie Chaplin, Noel Coward and Somerset Maugham were just a few of its famous patrons. Excited by the prospects presented, Thompson became actively involved in the reorganization of the Oriental Hotel.

By this time, Thompson had developed a certain fondness for the country and its people. He began to seriously contemplate settling down and going into business in Thailand. He foresaw a promising future for the country and wanted to be a part of this process. He decided that upon leaving the service, he would return and take up residence in Thailand permanently. In late 1946, Thompson left for the States to get his discharge.



"In the twenty years before his ill-fated holiday in Malaysia, he had accomplished more than most men in a full life. He had built a major industry in a remote and little known country whose language he could not speak; he had become an authority on an art that, previously, he scarcely knew existed and had assembled a collection that attracted scholars from all over the world; he had built a home that was a work of art in itself and one of the landmarks of Bangkok; and, in the process of doing all this, he had become a sort of landmark himself, a personality so widely known in his adopted homeland that a letter addressed simply 'Jim Thompson, Bangkok' found its way to him in a city of three and a half million people."(See Link.)

The house is one of the few standing all teak houses in Bangkok.

Photos: Taken of post cards purchased in Bangkok in 1996 by SW.
Link:  http://www.jimthompsonhouse.com/life/index.asp