Glenealy was named after Warren Delano's house. The street was originally called Elliot's Vale.

When Hong Kong was a British colony, many streets were named after British or Chinese people. Today not a single street in Hong Kong exists that is named after Captain Charles Elliot, R.N., who founded the British colony. For over 100 years this has been the case; but this was not always so. There was an artillery battery that carried his name and also a beauty spot called Elliot's Vale. But the latter was renamed Glenealy after a mansion that belonged to an American opium merchant called Warren Delano Jr.

There was a shortage of twenty-two-year-old American beauties in Hong Kong in 1877, the year his daughter Sara Delano visited her father. She had lived in Hong Kong as a child for a couple of years in the 1860s, but the place was so unhealthy that she and her two younger brothers were sent back to America.

Her second visit only lasted a month. "As for Hong Kong," she wrote, "it is much more beautiful as to scenery than I remembered it to be; as we came into the harbour it was too lovely." During this visit she was ardently courted by a young man who asked her to marry him.

Her family did not approve of her suitor and instructed her to reject his proposal. She returned to New York unmarried. History does not reveal who her inamorato was or why he was considered unsuitable. Perhaps he was a Democrat. Sara's father, Warren Delano Jr. was paranoiac about Democrats. His political philosophy is best summed up in his statement: "I will not say that all Democrats are horse thieves, but it does seem that all horse thieves are Democrats."

There is a certain flexibility about Hong Kong place names. For example, Statue Square was originally called Royal Square, a name which nobody used after it became full of statues. Today there is only a single statue in Statue Square. When Elliot's Vale became Glenealy at the end the Victorian era there were still plenty of respectable opium merchants operating in the colony who would have known Delano.

There are still many streets in Hong Kong named after dubious characters such as George Duddell who committed incest with various members of his family; Dr. Bridges who, while acting as Colonial Secretary, burnt the evidence against the notorious pirate Horse Grass Wong; and Adolphus Shelley, a failed con man. The place was the Wild West of the Far East.

Like his father Capt. Warren Delano Sr., Warren Jr. began his career as a sailor. He worked in Canton (Guangzhou) for Russell & Co. before the Opium War at the time when it was the largest dealer in "Foreign Mud". In a letter to his brother he wrote: "I do not pretend, to justify the prosecution of the opium trade in a moral and philanthropic point of view, but as a merchant I insist that it has been a fair, honorable and legitimate trade; and to say the worst of it, liable to no further or weightier objections than is the importation of wines, Brandies & spirits into the UStates, England &c." Many opium dealers were deeply religious. The Delanos were Unitarians.

The opium trade was erratic and he was on the verge of bankruptcy three times. At twenty-six Sara was still unmarried when she met James Roosevelt. He proposed to her. In spite of being a Democrat, Warren considered him a gentleman and the couple were married in 1880. Their first child was born two years later. They named the baby Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He later became the 32nd president of the United States of America. He was also a Democrat.