In 1907, the Bai entrepreneur Yan Zizhen, founder of the Yongchangxiang business group, began clearing land in Xizhou for a grand family estate. Completed around 1920, this compound covers 2,478 square meters and stands as a monument to the Tea Horse Road trade.

The architecture guides the senses through a sequence of light and shadow. Visitors enter through a towering gate to face the whitewashed screen wall of the traditional Sanfang Yi Zhaobi layout. This wall catches the morning sun, bouncing soft, warm light into the inner rooms. Moving deeper, the Sihe Wu Tianjing layout reveals four courtyards and five atriums, connected by the creaking timber of galloping horse corner corridors. The smell of cedar wood lingers near the windows, where craftsmen spent years chiseling openwork wood carvings of spring blossoms and harvest scenes.

In 1936, Yan Zizhen added a three-story Western-style villa to the rear. Built with imported steel and concrete, its cold, smooth walls contrast with the surrounding timber. Below this modern villa lies a damp, concrete bomb shelter, built to shield the family from impending wartime air raids.

The family's story fractured after 1949. Soldiers occupied the nearby 1935 Houlu estate, turning its elegant courtyards into a military camp. Decades of heavy boots wore down the stone thresholds. In 2002, Yan Xuehou, a twentieth-generation descendant, returned to reclaim his family's legacy. He launched a three-year restoration project, reviving the Six Harmonies of Spring layout and the unique Diejinlou courtyard, which suspends a traditional garden on the second floor above a ground-floor dining hall.

Today, the estate preserves these layers of survival. Visitors can taste the traditional Three-Course Tea, experiencing the bitter, sweet, and spicy flavors that mirror the family's journey from merchant wealth to wartime refuge, military occupation, and eventual restoration.