The plan marks a departure for the charitable trust that owns the building at 41 Cumberland Road, Kowloon, and had pledged to keep it intact and improve it.

Joey Lee Man-lung, vice-chairman of the management committee of Yu Panglin Charitable Trust, said structural problems had been discovered in the building that made maintaining it unfeasible. He said a colourful mosaic left by Bruce Lee would be kept on the wall outside the mansion – as would four window frames in the two-storey building.

The demolition and redevelopment of the mansion was expected to be finished by the end of next year. The Yu Panglin Charitable Trust was founded by billionaire philanthropist Yu Pang-lin who died in 2015.

Wong Yiu-keung, chairman of the Bruce Lee Club, had called for the building to be turned into a museum since 2008. He said on Friday he was disappointed the mansion would be torn down.