Capella Shanghai Opens in the Shikumen Lanes of Jian Ye Li

Capella Shanghai, Jian Ye Li opened in the autumn of 2017 in Xuhui district, in the former French Concession of Shanghai. It was the first Capella hotel in China. In place of rooms it has 55 villas, each a restored lane house of three storeys, and it is the only hotel in the city made entirely of shikumen buildings.

Shikumen

The shikumen, or stone-gate house, is Shanghai’s own form of housing. It appeared in the 1860s and combined the terraced row of a European city with the courtyard and layout of a Chinese house. Each house stands behind a stone doorframe with heavy black wooden doors, and rows of them are arranged along narrow lanes that run off a main alley. By the 1940s most of the city’s population lived in such lanes. Since the 1990s the majority have been demolished.

Jian Ye Li was built in the 1930s by a French property company on what is now Jianguo West Road. With some 260 houses in 22 lanes, it was the largest shikumen estate in the French Concession. Its red brick walls and stepped gables, borrowed from the architecture of southern China, set it apart. The estate was listed for protection, emptied of its residents in the 2000s and rebuilt in a long and disputed project. One part became shops and restaurants, one part serviced residences and the western part the hotel.

The villas

Each villa has a small walled courtyard at the entrance, a living room on the ground floor, a bedroom above and a bathroom or second room at the top, with a roof terrace. They range from one to three bedrooms. The interiors, by Blink Design Group, use dark timber floors, Chinese lacquer cabinets, silk wall coverings and French Art Deco references, a nod to the Shanghai of the 1930s.

The plan has consequences. There is no lobby in the usual sense and no lift. Guests walk the lanes to reach their houses and climb steep stairs inside them, and the hotel assigns a personal assistant to each villa. Those who need step-free rooms should look elsewhere.

Restaurant and spa

Le Comptoir de Pierre Gagnaire was the French chef’s first restaurant in mainland China, with a dining room of 60 seats, a bar and a bakery on the street. It received a Michelin star the year after opening. The Auriga spa occupies one of the lane buildings.

Where it fits

Most of Shanghai’s leading hotels are towers or riverfront palaces: The Peninsula on the Bund, Bulgari on Suzhou Creek. Capella offers the other Shanghai, the residential one of plane trees and low houses, within walking distance of the cafés and boutiques of the former Concession. For travellers who know the city, it is the more interesting address. A different response to the same heritage can be seen at Prada Rong Zhai, restored in the same year.