【Introduction】
The Lin Family Garden Mansion consists of three parts: the upper residential area, the Lai Garden and the lower residential area. The upper area includes several buildings: Jingxun Lou (“scenery fragrant house”), Rongjing Zhai (“Hibiscus mirror study room"), Xincuo (“new house”) and Yi Pu (“keeping healthy garden”). Constructions of these buildings started in 1864. The Xincuo (“new house”) and Yi Pu structures were built in the Japanese colonial period. In 1893 (the 19th year of Emperor Gunagxu), after passing the provincial imperial exam, Lin Wenqin built the Laiyuan garden for his mother. The garden later became a gathering place where poets of the "Li (Oak) Poetry Society" met. Inside the garden, there are attractions such as the Wu-gui-lou (Five-Cassia Tower), the Xi-jia-ting (dusk-beauty pavilion), the Xiao-xi-chi (small-habit pool) and the Feishang zuiyue ting (flying goblet drunken moon pavilion ). The family’s ancestral tomb is located in the garden as well.
In the lower areas stand several halls and houses, Gonbao Di, Cao Cuo( grass house, the hall of the ancestral shrine), Erfang Cuo, Dahua Ting (the large flower hall), and Ershiba Jian (28 rooms). The Gongbao Di was built in 1858 (the 8th year of Emperor Xianfeng) by Lin Wencha, who died in combat in Zhangzhou. The imperial court awarded him the posthumous title “Taizi Shaobao” (the prince’s mentor); hence, the residence was named the “Gongbao Di” meaning “the mansion of the prince’s mentor”. His son later expanded the scale of the residence in 1890; a huge hall designed in Fukienese style, Dahua Ting, was added, where a performance stage was erected in front of the hall. Erfang Cuo, a compound consisting of five layers of halls/houses, angled wings, and four courtyards, was the residence of Wenming, who was Wencha’s younger brother. Ershiba Jian (28 rooms) was the place where local militias were stationed.
In 1999, a large-magnitude earthquake hit the Wufeng area and severely damaged most of the buildings in the Lin Family Garden Mansion, causing some of them to collapse. After years of repair and hard work, most of them have been renovated.