One of Shànghǎi’s most whimsical buildings, the Scandinavian-influenced gothic peaks of the Moller House could double as the Munsters’ holiday home. Swedish owner and horse-racing fan Eric Moller owned the Moller Line. Previously home to the Communist Youth League, the building now houses a hotel, the Héngshān Moller Villa. Building No 2 is a recent extension, copied in similar style.
Fancifully perhaps, legend attests that a fortune teller warned Moller that tragedy would befall him on the house’s completion, so the tycoon dragged out its construction (until 1949). Moller clung on for a few more years before succumbing in a plane crash in 1954.
