Last year, the most expensive home in China hit the market (and sold) for a cool 1,000,000,000 Chinese Yuan – or the equivalent of £113 million. Taohuayuan, which literally translated means “Utopia” or “Peace Blossom Land” is a 1,663-acre estate located on a beautiful and peaceful private island on Suzhou’s (a city just west of Shanghai) Dushu Lake, China’s biggest lake by surface area.
The breathtaking home took three years to build, with each and every brick and plant handcrafted by Xiangshanbang Traditional Architectural and Building Skills. As you’d imagine from a home with this much luxury at the forefront of what it does, the craftsmen and women have taken years from concept to sale to make sure their artistic voice was heard and seen throughout every single centimetre of the home.
The home is vast in every sense of the word: there are 32 bedrooms (with each one facing south towards the lake), 32 bathrooms, a massive wine cellar, a stunning lakeside swimming pool and breathtaking gardens modelled on the Classical Gardens of Suzhou which are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Taohuayuan was built in the style of a traditional Chinese home complete with upturned roofs and a courtyard-style layout. The gardens, vast in size and filled with all kinds of traditional plant life from China, are perhaps the home’s most impressive features. With misty ponds, bridges and all manner of outhouses created in this classic Chinese style, you’d be right to feel as if you’ve stepped into a palatial five-star spa rather than a residential home.
One of the many reasons why this quickly became one of the most desirable homes on the market is because every aspect of its design and structure is in line with the all-important Chinese laws of feng shui. Every part of it was inspired by its neighbouring city of Suzhou which is known as a beautiful maze of waterway canals, leafy gardens and complex zigzag bridges. Pretty impressive, isn’t it?
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