Moller House is one of Shanghai's best known old mansions, and up to now it has also been the most inaccessible. The bizarre, castle-like Moller house at Shaanxi Nan Lu and Yanan Zhong Lu has long been a well-known landmark. Legend holds that Swede Eric Moller's young daughter drew a castle she saw in a dream, and Moller designed his mansion based on that drawing. A fortune-teller advised that terrible misfortune would befall Moller when the house was finished, so its completion was delayed...until 1949.
Since 1949, the Moller house has been used as the offices of the Shanghai Communist Youth League, keeping everything but its spires and imposing brown walls out of the sight of the general public. But that's about to change apparently. The Youth League has moved out, and the house is now under the management of the Hengshan Group, which also manages the Hengshan Hotel (the old Picardie Hotel). Plans are underway to renovate the house and five other nearby mansions, but it has yet to be decided whether to use them as a boutique hotel, conference center, or something else.
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on Sep 12, 2002
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