Country House came into being

 Affluent urbanites looking for resting places of the soul: LESLIE CHANG News Beijing Great Wall, Beijing, China farmers have had several years ago to give up their hard-worked the land, it is a rubble pile, walnut into forest land. Now the owners of this land is the city from Beijing a couple, along the winding mountain road, they drove an hour from home will be able to reach the mountains. Their ambition is: to be redneck land abandoned the idyllic countryside to the city for people to build a new home. rich Chinese urban people finally had a middle class, the most typical signs: in the country's second home. years of socialist construction, people have no family tradition, not to mention weekend vacation home. 35-year-old businesswoman and her husband Pan Shiyi, 38, 12 from Asia promising young architect, who built the Great Wall hope the China's affluent plan to buy second homes and at residential weekends for employees to provide a holiday home in the company. they planned before the end of September, the Great Wall of the Castle in the green trees, in the eight square kilometers of land, the construction from the 500 times, but high-income families and companies, or in budget. This $ 24,000,000 investment in the project quite revolutionary. For decades, too many busy people to flee rural areas of China, 13 million farmers There are 900 million still live in rural areas. the city's developers are advocating the modernization of the traditional courtyard and the demolition of the former residence of cultural figures, replaced with blue tile walls and modern architecture. the rich can do is to move assemble a suburban villa in the wall in a row, they can have some people get rich first, they have a weekend away from the city hustle and bustle of desire. In recent years, the outskirts of the city government is willing to sell land for accumulation of funds to promote local economic development. Zhang Xin and Pan Shiyi is one of them realized that pioneer village charm. they will own a house built in the mountains two years ago, the experience into a book similar to These artists are worried that developers will be destroyed from the city a paradise for them, while farmers in the mountains is suspected it was the whim of city people move. In China, different people on the reaction. looking mountain retreat of artists, writers with a few hundred dollars from farmers to buy their stone house. But there are strong economic strength, the city will have a country house weekend, as a symbol of wealth and status. IV published in January's is the most true, ; China's cities have a lot of people already have the most modern way of life, they want to pursue something more fresh. their second home do not need special approval from the government, but many buyers to purchase housing in rural areas also have land of their own is unclear. China's relevant laws do not allow the land sold to non-farmers, so many projects fall into endless the approval procedures in the. (Zhang Xin about her and her husband do not want to have experienced the approval procedures for comment.) while the farmers will these people as upstarts, that their money overnight on the mountain. full of dreams of the people then faced the local poor infrastructure, construction equipment they had to move from the city the past, to build their own roads, water and electricity connected, and training local people how to build them to the house. Zhai Wei, a newspaper photographer in Beijing journalists, have been to the south of France, always dreamed of having a built a second home in the village. He suburb northeast of Beijing, from a hope that her son a good school and moved to farmers living in the city and bought a room. his project, with the real estate industry say, is a real difficult installation. Chak 40 tons of sand will be dragged up the hill, used for the foundation, and from a factory specializing in the export of rough quartzite where to buy , used for ground-.44-year-old said: Chinese traditional design principles. Outside, the walls are painted white, lime, like Chak place of his childhood house. four-storey blocks of the word wall was a large glass house, like an enlarged beach house. swimming pool stood a statue in Athens and two Balinese-style thatched hut covered, along with tennis courts occupy most of the front lawn area . the house behind it is kept in metal cages in 50 dogs and a pet monkey, scratching to the visitors. Mercedes told reporters after the black window says. countryside villa also scare off a lot of dangerous people. Two years ago, lived in Geneva and Paris, Peking Man Yan Lan ten years, with $ 2,400 in from Beijing the outskirts of two hours to buy a piece of land. to live in city apartments in the Miss Yan dream of having a each plant on the land walnut belonged to them, so they requested that each of her trees were cut down thousands of dollars compensation for the loss. But they saw the city to the people, think it is, 'my chance came,' downtown residential and office buildings have been built, you can now make a number of houses to meet the pastoral scenery but do not want to have a nightmare of consumer groups have requested. and other development project, the scenery, tree. The two real estate developers also emphasized the artistic value of .50 years of construction, lack of innovation of Chinese Architecture: residential is defined as the size of unity, a similar pattern of a small apartment, which reflects the people of the socialist system Equality between. and dryers are filling in the bathroom designers have had numerous disputes, because in many apartment buildings in China, the bathroom is the only place where running water. In bit architect made the old Beijing courtyard to the mountain inside, and implied the same roof with rugged rugged ground. Another architect will be designed to be push and pull a wall of glass, and have different levels to see outside the house to more natural mountain scenery. Zhangxin that modern urban people who have to accept new ways of rural life. to create a style of life. who once worked this hardscrabble valley of rocks and walnut trees in the shadow of the Great Wall gave up on it years ago.The unlikely new owners of the land are a husband-and-wife team of developers from Beijing, an hour's drive away on winding mountain roads. Their plan: to build country homes for city-dwellers seeking the same rustic charm that drove the original tenants away.Affluent Chinese urbanites are finally embracing the ultimate bourgeois status symbol: a second home in the country. of socialism, people just don't have a tradition of home, let alone a weekend home, -year-old entrepreneur and her husband Pan Shiyi, 38, commissioned a dozen mostly young Asian architects for the development, dubbed houses to wealthy Chinese families for second residences and to companies creating rural retreats for their employees. They envision an eventual 100 dwellings scattered over eight square kilometers of land, modeled on a dozen initial homes to be finished by September. The houses will go on the market later this year for about ? 500,000 apiece - roughly 500 times the average urban household's yearly income, but within reach of affluent Chinese families and corporate budgets.The ? 24 million project is revolutionary in its own way. For decades, many Chinese concentrated on fleeing the countryside; about 900 million of the country's 1.3 billion people still live there. Urban developers worshipped at the altar of modernity, tearing down traditional courtyard homes and graceful scholars' gardens to erect buildings of blue glass and tile. The wealthy handful who opted out of city life moved only as far as gated compounds in the suburbs, where cookie-cutter villas are crammed row upon row and nature is a scrap of lawn bordered with a concrete walk.But that is changing. Two decades of economic growth have produced a group of affluent city dwellers who see the appeal of a weekend getaway. And local governments in recent years have been more willing to sell off land in the countryside to raise money and spur local development.Ms. Zhang and her husband are among those pioneering the idea that country is cool. They are writing a book about their experience building their own country home two years ago. Sort of the arrival of big-city developers would ruin their paradise and with farmers who questioned the sanity of city folk aspiring to life in the country.A home in the Chinese countryside built by husband and wife developers Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin. The multilevel interior conforms with the mountain slope, and windows highlight the view. Second homes in China still mean different things to different people. Artists and writers seek out mountain hideaways where a peasant's stone cottage can be purchased for a few hundred dollars. But some wealthy urbanites have embraced sprawling weekend houses as status symbols. Trends Home, a magazine launched in April, runs a column called We do not promote 60-square-meter living rooms and porch railings that block the view, have already attained the most modern lifestyle and are looking for something new. fact that the ownership of much rural land is unclear. Chinese law even hinders the sale of arable land to nonfarmers, enmeshing some projects in endless bureaucracy. (Ms. Zhang declined to comment on the approval process she and her husband went through.) Moreover , farmers often regard the arrivistes as a quick way to make a buck. And poor infrastructure forces would-be homeowners to haul construction machinery from the city, build their own roads and power supplies and train locals in the basics of home construction.For Zhai Wei, a Beijing newspaper reporter and photographer, a visit to the south of France inspired the dream of a second home in the country. He bought a plot of land northeast of the capital from a farmer who moved to the city so his children could attend better schools. His project was, in real-estate parlance, a real fixer-upper. Mr. Zhai hauled 40 tons of sand up the mountain for the foundation, then located rough green flagstone for the floors from a Chinese manufacturer that made goods only for export. , traditionally the place of honor, is reserved for his visiting parents. The yard is graced with a gingko tree and a stand of bamboo, references to scholars' gardens of old. Heating pipes are left exposed and the walls covered in flaking whitewash, much like the homes Mr. Zhai lived in as a child. anything anymore. two Balinese-style thatched huts surround the swimming pool, which, together with a tennis court, occupies most of the front lawn. Out back, 50 dogs bay in wire cages alongside a pet monkey that performs back flips for visitors. 't ask me about the house. We want to keep this place a secret, Yan Lan, who had just returned to China after more than a decade practicing law in Geneva and Paris, shelled out a ? 2,400 down payment for a piece of land about two hours' drive from Beijing. Ms. Yan, who lives in a city apartment, envisioned a .