“The old red and gray brick buildings, which stood for many years at the corner of Love Lane and Chinghai Roads, and which were demolished earlier this year, are being replaced by this finely laid out property, for which the design is by Messrs. Davies, Brooke and Gran. The corner of the site will be developed as shops with living quarters above, and to the south will be a large residence, garden and outhouses. On the left is seen the roof of an entertainment pavilion, with a large conservatory in the background.“ — Shanghai Sunday Times, December 1935.
“To the northeast of the block, a low-rise hospital complex occupies a prominent corner. The original house was built in 1936 as the home to real estate entrepreneur Zhou Xiangyun [周湘云] who was originally from Ningbo. With a flat roof and ribbon windows, the house was a reinforced concrete structure with many of the then latest infrastructural amenities, including a small lift for the three-story house and plumbing fixtures. It had been designed by Davies, Brooke, and Gran Architects. With the plaque of Villa Bayankara still visible at the entrance, the house was also home to one of Shanghai's first cars, which was given the license plate 001, being the first to be issued. In 1943 when he died, Zhou was listed fifth in the tax roster of the Concession-era Municipal Council. The house was recorded as given to the government in 1965, though in reality it had already been occupied in 1950 by the Department for Foreign Trade's Huadong Bureau [华东局], a high-ranking part of the CCP bureaucracy. When the bureau vacated the house, Yueyang Hospital [岳阳医院] took over the building and grounds. Like the former Qiu residence that became Minli Middle School, it is also a modern era garden-style house selected as Excellent Historic Architecture by the gazetting of 1999. But with its hybrid Western and Chinese architectural details of arches and colonnades, it is a contrast to the ivy-grown red-bricked ambiance of the former Qiu residence. Architect pundits who were proliferating in the early 2000s, described the house as neoclassical. The former Zhou residence would later be cataloged under the international modern style.” — Ying Zhou, Urban Loopholes. Creative Alliances of Spatial Production in Shanghai's City Center (2017), 293–294.
“Directly to the north of the hospital is a six-story office complex, the Mayflower Commercial Building [五月花商务楼], built in 1996. — Zhou, Urban Loopholes, 294.
The property, shown in the drawing below, consisted of a commercial and residential building on the corner (“Mayflower Building”) and a residence to the south (Villa Bayankara). The “Mayflower Building” (not known under this name at the time) originally housed Van’s Dutch Village Inn, which moved in from a nearby location on Bubbling Well Road in 1936. In 1939 the owner, A. H. F. van Herwijnen, sold it to Fred Stern, who remodeled it and opened the Café Europe. In 1941 the business became May Flower Restaurant 美华酒楼, which stayed open through the 1940s. In 1996, a new 6-story commercial building, 五月花商务楼, was built on the footprint of the original one (perhaps as add-on floors?).
Villa Bayankara and other hidden landmarks off West Nanjing Road: https://avezink.livejournal.com/313983.html
Emmanuel Gran’s project on Chinhai Road: https://avezink.livejournal.com/302037.html
Ying Zhou, Urban Loopholes. Creative Alliances of Spatial Production in Shanghai's City Center (2017).