Trials, tribulations and triumphs of renovating a Shanghai lane house

Melanie Ham wanted to restore her 1937 lane house back to its original art deco grandeur -- right down to the doorknobs.

Only when she set out to find just the right set of vintage knobs, she learned an important lesson about renovating in Shanghai.

“All the old doorknobs in China are fake,” says Ham. “I learned the hard way. I bought one and it was made of concrete, with a phoney patina.”

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And that’s not all. Although her art deco home now looks fully restored, the pendant lights are of uncertain provenance from Dongtai Lu, the old-school kitchen tiles are new from a source on Yishan Lu and the banister was customized circa 2007.

This wisteria-draped house off Henan Nan Lu may be designated by the city an “unmovable cultural relic,” but to keep it looking its age the owners had to be resourceful.

Creative historic inspirations

Ham’s creative interpretation of pre-war decor would probably make a purist cringe. But she had the blessing of Spencer Dodington, a local art deco aficionado, architect and tour guide who’s on a first-name basis (in Mandarin and Shanghainese as well as English) with every purveyor of deco -- and faux deco -- in Shanghai.

Beneath the paint and plaster in the living room walls there were Maoist slogans painted in bright red.— Melanie Ham

“Their house has a very strong design from the late art deco period,” says Dodington, “and that’s the style in Shanghai that’s most common. So we could use inspiration from other places nearby.

“For example,” he continues, “originally there wasn’t a fireplace in the living room. But taking a period replica and adding some focus was a way to make it more comfortable.”

Dodington was much-needed constant throughout the seven-month renovation.

While Ham’s Shanghai-born husband Jiweh was working long hours at Morgan Stanley, Ham, pregnant with their second child, was launching ShanghaiMamas.org, a parenting portal with more than 1,500 members city wide.

She was also travelling to see family back in North Carolina, begging, borrowing and stealing compatible heirlooms.

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While Melanie visited the reno site four times a week from temporary quarters in Xujiahui, it was Dodington who designed the sexy contours of the banister. He also commissioned the sturdy dining table, and had the adjacent sideboard copied from one he’d been captivated by while visiting a Polish shipping firm.

As for Jiweh’s magnificent desk in the foyer: “I’d found one similar to it and convinced him the greatest thing to do would be to use that design and make another one,” says Dodington.

Going with the reno flow

Meanwhile, Ham befriended her neighbors, eventually securing invitations into their houses to get a better idea of the lane vernacular. She mimicked their tile flooring that was untouched since it was originally laid, and tried to bring her sliver of a kitchen back to an authentic state after a bad 1990s renovation.

And when it looked like the floors would have to be dismantled and rebuilt to add better ventilation, she had the builders re-lay them on an angle like parquet.

That move doubtless left the contractor going, “Huh?” -- much like when Ham asked him to source a Western-style drop-down ladder for the attic crawlspace.

“He was totally baffled by that,” she says.

Their house has a very strong design from the late art deco period, and that’s the style in Shanghai that’s most common— Spencer Dodington, local art deco aficionado, architect and tour guide

But the builders -- who lived in the house throughout the renovation -- had their own special system that often left Ham scratching her head.

When they discovered that the length of cable they’d found to wire the house didn’t quite reach the ground floor, they simply announced there would be no phone access down there.

“And at one point,” says Ham, “I came in to see a supporting wall had been taken down, and the ceiling was being held up by these thin little pillars and a pile of bricks.”

History, a layer of paint at a time

The roof had the good fortune not to cave in that day (though termites have since had a go at the original wood beams and major flooding left a sludgy water line on the upholstered furniture).

Instead, the demolition revealed an intriguing detail that gives the home a genuine history that real brass doorknobs never could.

“Beneath the paint and plaster in the living room walls there were Maoist slogans painted in bright red,” she says, adding that neighbors have a hole in their wall from where the Japanese kicked it in.

She’s also found a real sense of belonging that eludes her Shanghainese mother-in-law -- a woman who, says Ham, “is happy with an elevator.”

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“There’s an excellent ‘neighborhood watch’ in the lane,” she says of the unofficial network that keeps her children -- Annabelle, six, and Micah, three -- entertained and out of trouble.

“After a flood, our neighbor helped clean out our house before he even did his own,” she adds. “That’s just the kind of people they are.”