Yu Yuen, Residential house in Yuen Long District, Hong Kong
Yu Yuen is a two-storey English-style mansion built in 1927 in East Tau Hui, Wang Chau, Yuen Long, beside the village office and Long Ping Estate. Its main gate carries a couplet reading "Viewing distant mountains and green people's paintings; Juen Wan Jia trees with red leaves returning." The building now stands derelict, its interior used as a factory and storeroom.
Cai Baotian, a wealthy Hong Kong merchant, built Yu Yuen in 1927 as an English-style mansion combining a villa and a farm. It opened to the public before the 1950s. In 1935 six robbers entered through a skylight and stole over HK$1,800 in cash and HK$400 in jewellery from Cai's four children and a maid. It was listed as a Grade 1 historic building in 2007 and downgraded to Grade 2 in 2010.
The name Yu Yuen means "garden of entertainment", and the main gate carries a couplet: "Viewing distant mountains and green people's paintings; Juen Wan Jia trees with red leaves returning." In 1935 the Overseas Chinese Daily listed it as the fourth famous garden in the New Territories, after Kang Le Garden, Dongying Research Institute and Ban Chun Garden, describing it as half villa and half farm. It has been abandoned since the 1950s.
Yu Yuen stands beside the East Tau Hui village office in Wang Chau, Yuen Long, next to Long Ping Estate. Green minibus 74A from Yuen Long Bridge Street Market serves the area. The building is derelict and its interior has been turned into a factory and storeroom, so it cannot be visited; the gate couplet and two-storey facade are seen from outside.
Yu Yuen served as a film set: in 1987 it was the mansion of the character Twelve Young in Rouge, in 1991 parts of Stephen Chow's Fist of Fury 1991 were shot inside as Master Fok's house and martial arts school, and in 1992 it appeared in New Mr. Vampire as a general's residence. The building was graded a Grade 1 historic building on 8 January 2007, then downgraded to Grade 2 on 17 May 2010.
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