Ma Dadong

Amanyangyun, 45 minutes’ drive from the centre of Shanghai, is unique for many reasons. Other properties are converted from traditional houses. Amanfayun, near Hangzhou, is a re-use of an entire one-street village. Its houses, now individual villas, are still surrounded by tea plantations. But Amanyangyun all began because an entrepreneurial developer, Ma Dadong, then only 26, was so appalled that villages in Fuzhou were being completely submerged by a forthcoming dam that he bought 13 of their traditional stone mansions. Each is 300-500 years old, dating back to the Ming and Qing dynasties.