Be one of the famous tourism destinations in Ben Tre, Huynh Phu ancient house has more than 100 years old and was ranked as a national architectural and art monument in 2011. This place is considered one of the oldest houses with unique architecture and is in the most beautiful house in the Mekong Delta.
Located in Dai Dien commune, Thanh Phu District, Ben Tre Province, Huynh Phu ancient house is one of unique wooden architecture. It has the deeply characteristics of the Mekong Delta people.
How Huynh Phu ancient house is special?
This house was built by Mr. Huynh Ngoc Khiem from 1890 to 1904. With a total area of more than 500m² (sqm), the house is built in the style of a cross, in the most rectangular shape, three compartments two wings. The roof is covered with yin and yang tiles, each tile is printed with images of folk activities such as chickens, bunches of rice, shepherds child caring buffalo, etc look very lively.
The foundation of the house is 1m high, surrounded by luxurious granite stones. The column system to support consists of 48 pillars are all made from precious wood such as ironwood, etc. The columns are arranged in 8 rows, each row has 6 columns, in many columns are carved with Confucian, ornate characters, and pattern. The interior of the house is kept almost as original, in the church compartments, the horizontal paintings, the couplets are painted with gold. The wall-mounted kit is made of a big tree. All indoor decorative patterns are sculpted, elaborately carved with familiar images. All are closely associated with the life of Mekong River region.
Story about Huynh Phu ancient house
According to Mr. Huynh Ngoc Thu (6th generation grandson of Mr. Huynh Ngoc Khiem, also known as name Huong Liem (1843 – 1927) said: “Mr Huong Liem is a Hue City native people in Central Vietnam who moved to the south and brought his wife and nine children to this Ben Tre land. It has been more than a century since he reached this wasteland and established his foundation of working in this land.
As the talking from Mr. Thu, thanks to Mr Huong Liem’s diligence in doing business and favorable crops, the result the family had more than 2,000 acres of fields. When he became a wealthy landlord of the region, Mr. Huong Liem returned to his hometown Hue City and hired workers to go to Ben Tre to build this architectural house. And it took within 14 years (1890-1904) to complete. The house is built in the French architecture with all precious wood inside from the walls, columns, trusses, carved large wooden slabs, etc.
It is worth a visit Huynh Phu ancient house
Because of the time building house reach 14 years, therefore, there are many stories transfer by mouth from villagers still today. At that time, the group of carpenters and builders built the house for a long time, they were still young and when they were older the house didn’t still finish, so Mr Huong Liem cared for getting married and set up work in this land. Or the story of the builders ate pomelo, threw the seed into the garden, until the pomelo tree grew and gave fruits, the house didn’t finish, etc.
Passing through the up and down the history, Huynh Phu ancient town reconstructed many times and still remains its special culture of hundreds of year. Today, there are many constructions such as main gate, extra gate, living room house, kitchen, screen and restore some worship facilities, chess table, bed, ancient well and outside temple, etc.
After the restoration of the family, the intact tiles were assembled and installed in the nave as a souvenir. In the old days, all roof tiles were printed with patterns on the bottom.
Furthermore tour in Mekong delta, thanks to the unique wooden architecture, the house still retains many high-value ancient artifacts including the sofa set of mother-of-pearl mosaic imported from France more than 100 years ago and two precious wooden beds.
Source Photos: Internet
