You can't imagine what fun -- and how rewarding -- it is to watch a locally made movie and to be able to whisper to your buddy, "Moller House staircase," "bathroom of Kadoorie Mansion," "House 3 of Morriss Estate," and so on. Local directors seem to prefer to use a montage of old Shanghai houses to represent just one in the film. For instance, in that clunker "Shanghai Triad" I counted five different locations for the one house supposedly belonging to Gong Li. In others they will stick to just one, for instance Song Qing Ling's house on Huai Hai Zhong Lu, but then that calls for some tricky shooting as they have to mask out the later, touristy additions.

Anyway, as you might suspect of one who so loves Shanghai's architecture, I collect houses like other people collect antiques (yes, I collect those too but that is a whole other story). I have lots of old favorites (many of which are featured in A Last Look), like the three M's: the Moller, the Morriss, the Marshall mansions, the Sassoon, the Sassoon-Gubbay, the Ezras, the Kadoorie, and the many little No-Name ones tucked away (usually behind high walls) all over the city.

Even in this age of mass destruction in Shanghai, however, I manage to add new houses every week or so -- sometimes only to see them torn down a week later. There is nothing more distressing than to pass a site which for years featured a lovely old, albeit shabby, favorite and to find a scant two weeks later an empty lot with a construction crane looming over it. It is amazing how fast you can demolish beauty with only brute strength and sledgehammers.

I went traveling last fall (please, it was only for a week or so) and returned to find virtually the last remaining Art Nouveau building in Shanghai (an apartment house) battered down to its foundations. That was the one just opposite the Chung Wai Bank on Yan An Lu. And that was the bank founded by Du Yuesheng, the boss of the Green Gang, who sought legitimacy (and found it) in banking, as opposed to -- or rather, in addition to -- his criminal activities. The bank then became the Shanghai Museum, and when it moved away evolved into Central Place, an office building. Anyway, the Art Nouveau one which you used to be able to peer down on from the picture gallery of the old museum has bitten the dust, literally. Luckily I have it on film -- somewhere.

You lose some, you gain some. On page 28 (lower left) of A Last Look there is a picture of a tatty but lovely old villa. That was H.H. Kung's summer home. Remember him? He was the Finance Minister and his wife was Song Ailing, one of the three lovely and ambitious Song Sisters (the other two of whom married Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek -- more famous but not half as rich). The mansion is now not very impressive looking, as the porte cochere has been brutally truncated by the thrice-widened Hong Qiao Lu, but once it had a garden in the front as well as in the back and was not buffeted by automobiles as it is now.

Previously we could never get into the house, but suddenly I did (miracles happen) and found that the garden in the back has a lovely gazebo and a swimming pool featuring a nymph and a mosaic fountain. That is the good news. The bad news is that both are slated to be torn down (despite our howls of protest). The Kung villa is actually not as lovely inside as the adjoining one (I haven't found out yet who lived there), which has wonderful fireplaces and stained glass windows, again see photo.

Can you imagine the important people who visited here, the dignitaries who met with the all-powerful Kung? And the dinners and the parties? Would that the walls could talk. Alas, those walls are now undergoing a (poor) renovation in preparation for the villa's being rented out for megabucks (we hear US$20,000+ per month). The good news is that perhaps you can pretend to be a prospective renter and visit the place? But I think you won't be in time to catch that great swimming pool, alas.

On the grounds of the Cypress Hotel is the famous Sassoon House, the half-timbered faux Tudor number that almost everyone knows of (and which is now almost impossible to visit). But few know of another Tudor beauty nearby, now occupied by one of Shanghai's 30+ Consuls General (there were four when I came in 1981). The interior of this 1930's country villa is to die for, and has been further enhanced by tasteful (and expensive) renovation and furnishings.

In its many rooms fireplaces abound, there's a library with built-in teak bookcases fronted with glass and fitted in brass, the floors are parquet, the doors arched, the windows look out on a vast sward of green. The stairs have wrought-iron banisters, there are wrought-iron hanging lamps and sconces -- and the whole thing even has central heating (a rare luxury here since 1945). To top it off, everything is color coordinated; the kitchen is yellow and teal, its cabinets matching its tiled floors. It really reminds you of what Gracious Living was all about -- and makes you long to get back to it.

Then there's the mansion with the bathroom (now an office) fitted out with a circular, multi-nozzled brass shower that I've only seen once before in my life -- in a plumbing catalogue from the turn of the century. On and on it goes, a little jewel behind a high wall here, there an opulent marble palace hidden behind a simple shop in what was once the gate house and servants' quarters. There's the one on Shanxi Lu that once belonging to Sir Robert Ho-tung and farther south on the same street the one with the stained glass windows and the ballroom -- but we will save those for another day, another column. And then there was the one a little farther south on Shanxi, the lovely old brick one with its plaque prominently proclaiming it as a "Municipally Protected Property." There is now a high-rise office building going up where it once stood. So much for Municipal Protection.