Picture Yin Yu Tang House, the Hall of Plentiful Shelter, a late eighteenth-century Chinese house re-erected here in Salem. This is the only example in North America of historic Chinese vernacular architecture, and it shows you what an average family dwelling in Anhui province’s Huizhou region might have looked like. A prosperous merchant surnamed Huang commissioned this stately, five-bay, two-story timber-frame residence; he built a sixteen-bedroom house with a tile roof and exterior masonry walls of sandstone and brick.
The house is about 47 feet 6 inches by 52 feet 5½ inches, not including the kitchens, and inside you would find two reception areas, a storage room, and a courtyard in the center around which family life unfolded. Notice the workmanship: large, intricately carved wooden panels that cover the inner windows and the robust timber framing that holds the rooms together. Standing here, you can imagine the rhythm of daily life in a home built for comfort and social life, moved across oceans to live again on this street.
Notice the timber frame, the tiled roof, and those carved wooden panels filling this reconstructed house.