Mr. Tong’s family has had this property since about 1911, when his great-grandfather took it over and renovated the entire plot. The layout is quite different from a traditional siheyuan, with two rows of rooms that both face south, the southernmost one opening to a large open courtyard space, about 100+ square metres. There is a date tree, the timber framework for vine plants to be planted in the spring and a funny old tree with a spiralling trunk. There are no rooms facing inward from the west, east or north, and Mr. Tong says that particularities of this design were highly influenced by his great-grandfather’s time spent abroad, when he studied in Germany. Mr. Tong’s great-grandfather’s library was located in one of the center rooms on the south end, with stacks of Chinese and German books from floor to ceiling. These were all destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, but most everything else, though, has been kept in its original form. The natural-stained timber is unusual for Beijing architecture (not painted/decorated the usual lively colours), but this taste is also perhaps something more akin to southern Chinese styles, as their family was originally from the South, not Beijing. Mr. Tong defends his home, and he points out that this hybrid will actually be more “traditional” than you would find in many other seemingly traditional siheyuan houses, as many of the versions available now in Beijing are copies, renovated reduxes made popular from this revival of “traditional as style”. Most of the timber used in Mr. Tong’s house is still the original wood from when it was built, down to the hardwood floors and infrastructure, and they insist that everything should be kept as is; they have a respect for its own form of originality, and insist that no changes should be made to the rooms or layout. When a toilet was finally added to the house later on, they purposefully kept it separate from the rest of the rooms, on the western side in a relatively non-descript fashion off of a narrow corridor. The kitchen is next to that, and while relatively unfurnished with appliances, Mr. Tong and his wife suggest that you can have food brought and eat all together here, and then retire to your own rooms after.

*this is the courtyard recommended by Anouchka (yes, they said you are cute!)…