A tranquil respite from Shanghai
MOGANSHAN, once a haven for the city’s foreign elite, offers hiking and biking trails and new lodging options
Following in the footsteps of foreign missionaries, Chinese gangsters and Chiang Kaishek, I travelled to the mountain outpost of Moganshan looking for a breather from full-throttle Shanghai. Before I reached my destination, however, I had an intimidating set of stairs to climb.
“It’s 84 steps,” said a smiling Tiger, the manager of House 2, the restored early 20th-century villa where I’d be staying, as we peered up at the rickety stone staircase shaded by drooping branches of bamboo. Arriving at the top short of breath, I realized to my dismay it was another 37 steps to my room on the third floor.
Although the climb was a challenge, the journey to Moganshan from Shanghai was a relatively easy one: a three-hour trip by train and car. That proximity, along with new lodging options that have reinvigorated the area, has begun to attract foreigners in recent years, more than a century after its original heyday.
The main draw, however, is what awaits at the top of those stairs: dense forests of bamboo and pine criss-crossed by hiking and biking trails, a lovely, tranquil respite from the crowded streets of Shanghai. Indeed, outside of those new accommodations ,moganshan has changed little since it served as the Hamptons of this part of eastern China.
Moganshan was settled in the late 1800s by missionaries and their families desperate to escape the heat and disease of swampy Shanghai summers. By the early 20th century, it had become a haven for that city’s foreign elite, who built sprawling stone mansions and whiled away their days playing on lawn tennis courts or lolling in the many swimming pools that dotted the mountainside.
It wasn’t long before a less reputable sort turned up, including Du Yuesheng, also known as Big-eared Du, and Zhang Xiaolin, two gangsters who ran Shanghai’s opium trade. Zhang kept pet tigers behind his villa and is rumoured to have fed a mistress to one of them.
Moganshan also attracted powerful couples of a different stripe. The drug dealers summered next to Huang Fu, a Kuomintang foreign minister, who hosted the Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, Soong Mei-ling, on their honeymoon in 1927.
The fun didn’t last for long. Although Moganshan was spared destruction during Japan’s invasion in the late 1930s, the Communists soon took control and appropriated the mountain’s stately stone villas for themselves. It has taken decades for the spot to return to its place as a popular summer retreat.
Mark Kitto, a British author and the former publisher of a magazine in Shanghai (where I once worked), was the first foreigner to move back to the mountain in the mid-2000s. Kitto served as my guide in Moganshan, and as we zipped along the area’s curving roads on his motorcycle, he commented on the history of the homes, some of which have been renovated by developers and turned into guest houses.
At Huang’s villa, which is now a museum, Kitto pointed out a tree planted by Madame Chiang.
“She taught Chiang Kai-shek to dance underneath it,” he said.
Inside, the honeymoon suite still has a wedding photo of the couple on a side table. Down the hall is another preserved bedroom, with black and gold Shanghai Decostyle beds, where Zhou Enlai, the future first premier of Communist China, spent time during his secret meetings with Chiang to discuss a possible united front against the Japanese invasion.
The tennis court at Zhang’s old villa is now overgrown and the tiger cage is long gone, but an elaborate Chinese temple that he built remains.
Both villas are on the itinerary of guided tours of the mountain provided by Kitto, who chronicles Moganshan’s history in his book China Cuckoo (Chasing China in the United States). His wife, Joanna, originally from Guangzhou, is also an area enthusiast, having renovated three other villas that she rents out – called House 23, 25 and 2 – in an attempt to recreate the feeling of the resort’s early days.
Joanna Kitto said the dilapidated mansions had walls when she leased them from the People’s Liberation Army, the current owners, but little else. She rebuilt the floors in House 2 using recycled wood from old houses in the area and copied the mosaic patterns she saw in a neighbour’s bathroom that hadn’t been touched since the early 1900s.
She also runs Moganshan Lodge, the only spot on the mountaintop where visitors can unwind with wine after a day of stair-climbing or mountain biking through the bamboo forests. The lodge has maps for self-guided hikes around the top of the mountain or down the slopes into the surrounding valley, and visitors can also rent bikes from the Songliang Hotel next door.
Despite the efforts of the Kittos, development on the mountain has been slow, thanks to resistance from the provincial government and the army, which owns a fifth of the old villas. Nearby, though, fewer bureaucratic hurdles have allowed foreign entrepreneurs to embark on far more ambitious projects, like the eco-resort Naked Stables Private Reserve, which opened last fall several miles from the mountain after a 200 million renminbi (about $31.7 million) investment from Grant Horsfield, the South African owner, and his architect wife, Delphine Yip.
For Horsfield, it wasn’t so much the history of the area that attracted him but the proximity of such unspoiled countryside to Shanghai. His goal was to build a luxury property that was also sustainable, a new concept in China, where high-end hotels are a dime a dozen but ecotourism is still in its nascent stages.
It hasn’t been easy, Horsfield added. He and his wife, the site’s master planner, worked with engineers and designers to create a resort that incorporated green building practices but didn’t sacrifice style or amenities. There are 40 rondavelstyle villas – essentially westernized versions of African huts – with environmentally friendly rammed earth walls, as well as design features like thatched roofs, raw wood furnishings and cowhide rugs. Another 30 villas nestled at treetop level were built with energy-efficient, prefabricated panels, though guests may be most impressed by the personal butler service and balcony hot tubs with panoramic views of the mountains.
There were some missteps, like the pool lights that cost Horsfield a point toward LEED certification because of light pollution, and smart innovations. Each room has consumption meters that track water, electricity and gas usage. Guests receive a discount if their consumption is below the average by their stay’s end.
“We’re not just going the first step of trying to be green by building an earth wall,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is show you that you can make a difference, too.”
Horsfield isn’t the only foreigner enticing well-heeled guests back to Moganshan. Christophe Peres, a native Frenchman, and his wife, Pauline Lee, spent nearly five years building the upscale 40-room hotel Le Passage Mohkan Shan. The property, which also is an organic tea plantation, partly opened in December, with the rest scheduled for completion by October.
Peres said that he, too, was inspired by the manor houses on the mountain, which is why he chose century-old, recycled wood and handmade French-style tiles for the floors. He also built a saltwater swimming pool with views of the tea-covered hills and planted a 12,000-bush rose garden. The Shanghainese chef has been well trained in French cuisine, and the wine cellar is stocked with biodynamic French wines and Peres’s homemade pear brandy.
It has taken some time, but decadence is slowly returning to Moganshan.
“When Chinese started to travel, they wanted to go far,” Peres said. “Now you have some people who have money to travel far, who’ve been to Europe – they want weekend escapes.”
There are a few differences from the old days, however. Political bosses may still drop in, but they leave their exotic pets at home.