On the summit of Mount Parker south of the Dockyard, Taikoo built for its foreign executives a number of mansions, clubhouse and infirmary. To avoid the complications involved in building roads uphill, the company took to construct a cable car system — the first in Hong Kong — in 1892, connecting King’s Road straight with Quarry Gap of Mount Parker. Other than these mountaintop assemblages, the company also put up senior staff dormitory on the hillside mounds, such as Kornhill on which we find Kornhill Gardens today. By record, the name Kornhill appeared in the late 19th century, when Taikoo erected, for a German manager called Korn, a mansion made of granite and red brick on the top of this mound. In 1902, another redbrick mansion was built for the first manager of Taikoo Dockyard. Even today you can make out the expanse of Kornhill by observing the section of King’s Road near Taikoo MTR Station — because, with Kornhill standing in the way, King’s Road and the passing tram track were made to run round the foot of the hill.

In the early 1980s, when Taikoo Dockyard was converted to Taikoo Shing, a residential estate, Kornhill was also demolished to provide land for the construction of other estates, namely Kornhill, The Floridian and Kornhill Gardens, as well as Kornhill Road. With the opening of Kornhill Road, the tram could go straight through the area instead of running round King’s Road at the foot of the hill. The redbrick mansions that so richly furnished Mount Parker gradually vanished; only “Woodside” at Mt Parker Road inside the Tai Tam Country Park (Quarry Bay Extension) survives through today.