You’ve got mail. And when you opened it, you found that you are the lucky winner of a $700,000 first-of-its-kind SOHO unit. But the mail was dated 1 April. How would you react?

“Nice Joke. Talk to you later.”

That was Mr Costantino Gonnella's reply to the email sent by Lynn Tan from Far East Organization informing him of his win.

Mr Gonnella and his father, Renato, were spending April Fool's day on windswept Easter Island, one of earth's most isolated inhabited spots; its nearest inhabitable neighbour, Pitcairn Island, is 1250 miles away. The next stop in their round-the-world trip was Santiago, Chile, where Lynn's second email awaited him.

Mr Gonnella, who has never bought a lottery ticket in his life, never believed in them, he said, was finally convinced it was not an April Fool's joke.

Mr Gonnella qualified for Far East Organization's Win-A-SOHO draw when he bought a unit at River Place in May last year. “River Place is a place I would like to stay. The swimming pool is beautiful. I could jog, walk along the river promenade. There are all these restaurants. Whatever you need is here. And yet there is hardly any noise. It is an oasis.”

Mr Gonnella, a native of Rome, has been a resident of Asia for over two decades. He was in China long before it became a fad: first as a student at Beijing University, then as a representative of Fiat. In fact he made the first private car, a red one “so that all would notice it”, sales transaction in Beijing.

Now he is going to call Singapore home. After spending 23 years in East Asia, 16 of which in Hong Kong and Macau, the retired Mr Gonnella would like to settle in Singapore where the pace is less frantic than in Hong Kong. Hong Kong to Mr Gonnella, in the words of his favourite author, Dave Barry, is “not a place for reflection. (But) is the Ultimate Shopping Mall.”*

“I like Singapore. I like its people. There are not many places in the world that is civilised, clean and comfortable like Singapore. The river area has a lot of character and atmosphere. It is historical, trendy, hip and happening.”

Mr Gonnella feels that the potential of the river has not been optimised as it should be. But though he has no plans for the SOHO unit he has just won, he plans to keep it. “This place has character.”

*source: Dave Barry is Not Making This Up, Ballantine Books, NY,1994