Ex-Russian-owned villa restored as illegal structures demolished
Print Edition
XUHUI District has finished restoring an 80-year-old garden villa after demolishing illegal structures at the site and repainting the building, officials said yesterday.
More than 500 square meters of illegal structures were removed from the historic villa at 255 Anfu Road.
The villa was built in the 1930s by a Russian noble called Andreev, who moved to Shanghai with his family after World War I. The villa is one of the few remaining Russian style villas in the city.
Eleven households, mostly tenants from out of town, are living in the villa. Each household has a 10-square-meter or so room, and the kitchens and bathrooms are shared.
Landlords and tenants once built some 20 illegal houses around the three-story villa, occupying the 300-square-meter garden and most public areas, an official with the Hunan Road sub-district office said.
The authority spent a year demolishing 22 illegal structures and planted trees in the garden to restore the villa’s original look.
The original twisted wooden steps, windows, shutters, arched gate and decorations on the outside wall have been preserved. The inner structure has been repainted in white and yellow.
Trees, shrubs and grassland have been planted in the rear garden, which was once occupied by illegal buildings.
“There were once artificial hills, a lake and a bridge in the garden, while the villa was a quiet and comfortable place to live,” said a resident surnamed Jiang who has lived in the building for over 60 years.
He said many of his neighbors had hoped the government could relocate them and buy the villa for commercial development, but he preferred to live in the house where he was born.
Jiang said illegal structures initially appeared in the complex around the 1960s when many residents moved into the house following the city government’s arrangement due to inadequate accommodation resources citywide at that time.
In the past decade the garden was fully occupied by illegal houses that were rented to tenants or were used as flower and leather stores.
A tenant surnamed Liu from neighboring Jiangsu Province said she once lived in a wooden hut illegally built in the garden.
“The landlord has to move us to his apartment in the villa recently after the demolishing campaign of the government,” she said. The monthly rent for her 10-square-meter hut was 2,000 yuan (US$290).
The residents’ committee has posted a bilingual “civilization convention” in both Chinese and English at the entrance of the building. It asks both residents and visitors to obey the rules and keep the building clean.
The convention includes rules such as “clean and clear public areas,” “classify garbage” and “park orderly.”
Many foreign visitors with photographers come to visit and take pictures of the villa, Jiang said, adding the residents welcomed the visitors but also reminded them not to disrupt their daily lives.
The Xuhui government launched a campaign to demolish illegal structures attached to historic buildings from last year in an effort to return the city’s major heritage areas to their original splendor, an official with the district government said.
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