The Hotel of First Love

🌟 Explore the Fairy Tale Castle of the Magical City: The Past and Present of Mallet Villa

This Nordic fairy tale-style building quietly sits on Shaanxi South Road, creating a wonderful contrast with the surrounding modern skyscrapers. In the 1930s Shanghai French Concession, a British businessman named Mallet built this real-life fairy tale castle to fulfill his daughter's dream.

🏰 Normandy-style Spires
The villa’s most eye-catching feature is its staggered spires, as if directly taken from an Andersen fairy tale. It is said that young Mallet once described the castle of his dreams to his father, and these spires were recreated based on the watercolor paintings he made. Standing in front of the villa and looking up, the sunlight refracts through the stained glass, casting dreamy light spots.

🌲 A Custom-Made Garden Forest
Unlike the symmetrical gardens of traditional European architecture, Mallet Villa’s courtyard is designed as a "miniature forest." It features rare tree species from around the world, and winding paths hide the owner’s whimsical ideas from back then. While lingering here, we unexpectedly discovered several rare Davidia trees, known as "living fossils," which are truly rare in the city center.

⏳ Every Tile Tells a Story
Inside the villa, exquisite details can be seen everywhere. Imported Italian mosaic floor tiles form patterns of marine creatures, handcrafted oak stair railings by British artisans are inlaid with ivory, and church-style stained glass windows depict biblical stories. The most interesting is an irregular tile at the corner of the second floor, said to be a "misprint" deliberately left by workers during construction, becoming the villa’s most unique mark.

✨ A Gorgeous Transformation at Nearly 90 Years Old
This building, which has witnessed the changing tides of Shanghai, has now been transformed into a boutique hotel. Guests can experience the wonderful feeling of staying inside a cultural relic. When we tried it, we found that the room keys were vintage brass keys that make a crisp clicking sound when turned, as if opening a door through time.

Post by Max~Reed | Jul 15, 2025