Shanghai Daily news

The classical Greek-style house on Julu Road with a statue of Psyche in its grand garden was designed by renowned architect L.E. Hudec and is now the home of the Shanghai Writers’ Association.

 An elegant chandelier and staircase. 

A file photo of Chen Dingzhen on her 50th birthday. Chen’s English name was Rose and 80 years ago she invited Hudec to design the home for her and her husband, Liu Jisheng.

She was the wife of an eminent Shanghai tycoon but it is the memory of her deep love for her family that lingers on in the grand garden house she ordered to be built, writes Michelle Qiao.
The villa at 675 Julu Road deserves its name - "Garden of Psyche." The house with its elaborate garden is redolent with the love and hopes of a woman named Rose who lived there 80 years ago.
The Greek-style house faces an astonishing centerpiece in the garden - a 1.5-meter-high white marble statue of Psyche with four angels and springs of water filling a butterfly-shaped pool beneath her feet.
Today it houses the office of the Shanghai Writers' Association and the delicate, exotic garden in front of Psyche is where more than 80 brides and grooms go to hold their wedding ceremonies each year.
The house was a gift to Rose and so was Psyche.
Its former owner was Liu Jisheng, a tycoon in Shanghai in the 1920s who, with his elder brother Liu Hongsheng, owned many large enterprises in the city including the Shanghai Cement Company, Hong Kong Matchstick Factory and the China Bank of Enterprises.
This influential businessman built a two-story villa at 681 Julu Road in 1921. In 1924 he bought the neighboring land and gave his highly educated wife, Chen Dingzhen, a large sum of money as a birthday gift to build a house in a design of her own choosing. Chen's English name was Rose.
Chen invited the renowned Hungarian architect L.E. Hudec to do the job as he was the architect of many of the city's signature buildings including the Park Hotel near what is now People's Square and which was then the tallest building in Shanghai.
The house was not only a big project for the designer but also for the hostess. Chen, then 40, had excellent taste and wanted to create a magnificent, smartly designed home to match her husband's booming status and wealth. In a society where wealthy men usually had several concubines, she hoped this would be a good way to strengthen her marriage and, thus, steady her family.
"Touched by the wife's affection for her family, Hudec ordered a statue of Psyche brought from Italy as a gift and it became the 'soul' of this garden," says Zang Jianmin, deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai Writers' Association.
Responsible for the house's preservations and renovations, Zang has kept in touch with the Liu family and published several articles about their former home.
The statue reminds visitors of the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche which was the basis for the popular fairytale, "Beauty and the Beast."
Psyche is a mortal princess whose beauty arouses the jealous wrath of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love (Venus in Roman mythology). Aphrodite sends her son Eros, the god of love (Cupid in Roman mythology), to shoot Psyche with one of his arrows and to make her fall in love with the most hideous monster he can find. But the girl's exquisite beauty so enchants Eros that he cannot bring himself to carry out his mother's command. He chooses her to be his bride and they finally are united after encountering many hardships and obstacles.
The first floor of the residence features giant halls where large-scale banquets and balls were held. Each pendant lamp hangs from a cloud of brilliant patterns on the ceiling.
"The family seldom dined out for fear of being kidnapped," says Zang. "They had four Chinese chefs and two Western chefs to prepare the frequent banquets they held when they hosted important guests. Liu's close friend, the Kuomintang spy chief Dai Li, lived in the house during his Shanghai trip in September 1945."
Yao Keming, a writer who has interviewed Liu's youngest daughter, says the house used to have more than 40 servants and 20 dogs including four wolfhounds to act as watchdogs at night.
Liu and his elder brother left Shanghai for Hong Kong in 1948. The brother returned and was made deputy director of the Shanghai Federation of Industry and Commerce. However, Liu himself never returned.
"They left only their most capable second daughter, Liu Lianzhi, to stay behind in the house to watch over it," says Zang. "Liu married a medical professor and lives in Shanghai. Her parents tried to persuade her to stay with them in Hong Kong when she was there on a visit in 1960 but she refused. She wanted to stay with her husband although her life had switched from a wealthy one to an ordinary one. She is 92 years old, in good health and she still has a clear mind."
Most of Liu's and Chen's offspring are now scattered around the world, many of them working as doctors or bankers. They often bring their children to visit the old garden home as part of their family education.
The government took over the residence in 1952. Luckily, both Psyche and her garden survived the upheavals of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).
"Liu Lianzhi told me an anecdote that a gardener cried out her name when she visited the garden in 1980, the first time she had done so after the 'cultural revolution'," says Zang. "It was the former gardener of her family. The gardener had been assigned to the real estate management department during the 'cultural revolution' and had volunteered to work in the garden. He never allowed anyone to destroy anything and he kept the statue buried under straw in a greenhouse for 10 years."
The gardener spent the rest  of his life working in the  garden and his son continues  his work today.
The second floor of the house contains Liu's and Chen's bedroom and those reserved for VIP guests. The children slept on the third floor.
The couple's main bedroom is another fantasy - there are roses everywhere. A creamy-hued closet is carved with countless roses and flying angels and tiny roses grace the walls and ceiling.
What people want to know is whether Chen's hope of keeping her husband close to her came true. Like Eros and Psyche, the couple stayed together until Liu died in 1962. She died two years later and they are buried side-by-side in Montreal, Canada.
A sweet scent from nowhere lingers in the air of the "Rose" bedroom making it seem that the carved flowers have come alive. Perhaps they absorbed the love and dreams of the woman named Rose who once lived there.