Moller’s Estate

The legendary story of the Moller Mansion is like its fairy tale-like exterior… (once upon a time…)

Eric Moller arrived to Shanghai from Sweden in 1919 in poverty and won in a horse race; he used the money to purchase a few horses and got engaged in the racing business which Shanghai was famous for. Later he started a trading company, bought a ship carrying passengers along the canels and rivers around the Cheong Kong areas, and even tried his hand at real estates! He soon rose to become a ‘Taipan’, the Chinese word for a boss or successful businessman.

As his business expanded, he decided to build a house worthy of his own status.

According to most present sources, while he was finding an architect, his daughter, who had a great fondness for Andersen’s fairytales, dreamt she walked into one of the fairytale’s castles. She sketch the house to her father after waking up the next day. Eric was very interested and invited some architects to construct the house as sketched.

It was completed in 1936, but in Tess Johnston’s famous book on Shanghai’s old houses, ‘A Last Look’, she wrote that the house’s completion was delayed for a couple of years after a fortune teller warned Moller misfortune would occur if ever the house is completed. He finally did so in 1949, the year when the house was overtaken by the Communist Youth League.

But a more accurate source was that the Japanese overtook the mansion after the Pacific War, later occupied by some KMT officials, before the Communist Youth League moved in, the latter unveiling the mask of this mysterious house to the public.

The garden of the mansion covers an area of 200sqm. In the centre of the garden lies a grave with a bronze statue of a horse erected above it. Below buried a horse many said that had tuned Moller rich. Later some of his other favourite pets were buried there.

The whole estate comprises of 6 buildings, a total number of 106 rooms, with wood panel interior, decorated with navigation motives that might symbolize Moller’s shipping business.

Hengshan Group, a Shanghai based travel company, took charge of the estate in 2001 and renovated it to adapt its new use as a hotel, which was officially opened in 2002 as Hengshan Moller Villa.

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