Chen Chung-ho Memorial Hall

Built for Chen Chung-ho (陳中和), the wealthiest businessman in Japanese colonial era Kaohsiung, this two-storey brick mansion in Lingya took three years to build and was inaugurated in April 1925. It is generally regarded as the first privately built Western-style residence in the city, and it originally looked out over the water at Lingyaliao (苓雅寮), but harbor expansion and land reclamation severed that view. The family moved out over the decades following Chen’s death in 1930, and it stood empty from 1974. The Chen Chung-ho Charity Foundation restored the building between 1994 and 1996 and opened it as a memorial hall in 1997; it was registered as a historic building in 2003 and admits visitors one Saturday a month.