Living history
A 400-year-old Beijing residence that was once home to an imperial official provides the perfect blend of old and new, east and west.
Imagine if 11 Downing Street, the residence of Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, were your home. It seems far-fetched, but in Beijing an American couple live in a house with as much, if not more, political significance.
Chris and Cheryl Harper, a property developer and film producer respectively, are the latest tenants at one of Beijing's choicest historical addresses. Ten years ago antiques trader Ting Liu - daughter of Liu Shaoqi, China's ex-president and Mao Zedong's number two - bought the 400-year-old former residence of a Ming-dynasty Imperial Court finance minister. The address is noted for other reasons: the powerful eunuch Wei Zhong Xian lived there in the 1600s and more recently Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek occupied the house across the lane.
Liu, whose Sungari Auction House is a major art auctioneer in Beijing, was inspired to buy the house because of a lifelong interest in Chinese relics; she also needed a fitting place to store precious antiques. After kitting out the house with her treasures, however, Liu rented it to Handel Lee, her Beijing-based American lawyer and a noted collector of contemporary Chinese art. Lee also participated in sprucing up the house, adding modern amenities and a full-scale western kitchen. Because he later built a home of his own on the outskirts of Beijing, the heritage-listed home then went to the Harpers.
The couple, clients of Lee, had moved to China in 1998 and were desperate to rent a place with local flavour after less-than-satisfactory leases, including a stint at one of the city's many expatriate compounds. 'I'm in China and I'm living in Orange County [California],' Chris recalls, referring to one of his previous Beijing homes.
The Harpers moved into a home boasting a mixture of styles, but they made a mark by adding contemporary western and Chinese art to pieces owned by Liu and Lee. Cheryl also landscaped outdoor areas, introducing grass, trees, two small stone gardens and a large water feature (see Tried & Tested). The elegant Asian-inspired garden also includes outdoor sculptural elements such as a pair of 800-year-old column rests belonging to Liu and several small sculptures found when the courtyard was excavated in preparation for its facelift.