1.It’s one of Shanghai's many colonial-era mansions, located on the northwestern edge of the French Concession, at the intersection of Middle Yan’an Road and South Shaanxi Road 9 (exact address 30 South Shaanxi Road). It stands out with its fantasy of brown-tiled Gothic and Tudor steeples, gables, and spires.
2.It was built by a Swedish shipping magnate, Eric Moller, in 1936 and there are two stories behind its origins.
According to the legend, Jewish Eric Moller came to Shanghai in 1919 empty-handed and made his fortune here by winning large sums at the horse races, culminating in the construction of this fantasy home for his daughter. The daughter is said to have had a dream in which she saw a castle like those in the Hans Andersen fairy tales. As soon as she woke up, she drew a sketch. The father was so fond of his youngest daughter that he immediately commissioned an architect to build her dream house.
In reality, the Mollers were originally Swedish with British citizenship. Eric Moller was the son of a wealthy businessman Nils Moller, who had started a business in Hong Kong in the 1860s. The business grew and expanded into eight cities in China. Although the Mollers left Shanghai in 1950, their companies continued operating in Hong Kong into the 1990s. The core of the family business was shipping and shipbuilding, and in Shanghai, the Moller portfolio included shipping lines, insurance, real estate and investment. In 1913, Eric Moller took over the family business and prospered. He had a steamboat that ran between Shanghai and Zhenjiang in Jiangsu Province. In the mid-1920s, decided to embark on the construction of a house for his big family – six children and a menagerie of dogs and cats.
3. In 1927, a Shanghai architectural firm, Allied Architects, delivered the blueprint, and the house was essentially finished in 1936. The combination of a distinctly Scandinavian style with architectural references to ships throughout the house hints that Moller was probably heavily involved in the design.
4.The design
This exceptional mansion was styled following mostly Scandinavian style, with architectural influences from the interior cabins of ships. There are beautifully decorative round windows near the stairs that resemble something usually seen in a ship's cabin, as well as a very pretty oval fence railing on the third floor that also follows the ships interior theme.
Besides its Scandinavian features, there are some Chinese touches. The enclosing walls had Chinese glazed tiles at the top. Two stone lions stood at the front gate. Inside were Chinese designs and patterns and many Chinese antiques.
Moller was a horseracing fan and the chair of the Shanghai Horse Racing Club. His beloved horse Bionic Hill, an Arab stud stallion, brought him money and honor in the racing field. In memory of his horse, Moller built a tomb to Blonic Hill that stood on the lawn of the garden. Now only the bronze statue of the horse remains. Later, after the funeral of the horse, the family's dogs and cats joined the statuary.
5.The fate
It was said that a fortune-teller told Moller that if he ever finished the house, ill-fortune would befall him. So Moller dawdled, adding bits and bobs for more than 10 years, finally completing the task in the late 1940s. According to Tess Johnston - architectural historian, the co-author of 'A Last Look: Western Architecture in Old Shanghai',who met Moller's daughter in the summer of 1992, the fortune-teller tale too is false. However, there is no doubt that Moller's fortunes took a turn for the worse following the breakout of World War II.
During the Pacific War, the house was occupied by the Japanese. Later, it housed a Kuomintang espionage agency. Moller left Shanghai in 1950 soon after the communists came to power. A few years later on a flight to Singapore, as his daughter Nancy watched and waited for him at Singapore's Kallang Airport, his Qantas plane crashed on landing, killing Eric Moller and 32 other passengers.
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