The ancient house of Mr. Vo is located at No.411, Group 21, Area 1B, Cai Be Town    ( in Cai Be District ), which has a typical style of Southern people, it was built in 1929 and completed in 1931. The ancient house has been through four generations of use and many times of renovations for over eighty years, but it has still contained mostly architectural features as its origin. It is only 800 meters away from the center of Cai Be Town by road and located by Cai Be tourist boat station, therefore it is advantage for the tourists to get there by cars and also by tourist boats.

The ancient house was built according to the traditional architecture in the shape of “Dinh” letter with the construction area of 380 m² and a set of frame included 54 wooden pillars, with a height of 20-22 cm standing on blue stones respectively.

The house was built in the style of the slanting beam house with 3 compartments and 2 twin roofs, with 5 front doors and a plate of big word of “Hien Nhac Duong” carved with nacre and gilded in front of the house; there are arched doors which were carved intricately with sacred creatures of Dragon and Phoenix; the panel’s rails were carved skilfully with the symbols of yellow daisy, apricot blossom and pomegranates, along with the carving in the shape of carps; the door frames were decorated with stylized head of dragon and string of leaves and many meticulous carvings of phoenix, apricot flowers and fruit.

The front compartment was built with the style of two big wooden pillars. The interior of the main building has 36 wooden pillars, each supporting pillar was carved meticulously with many traditional symbols of plants and flowers, making this a very attractive building. Especially, the middle main pillars were decorated with a pair of vermilion lacquered and gilded wood panels which has Vietnamese traditional meaning of the filial piety to the parents; the side spans exist two silk partitions which were decorated skilfully with 18 carving patterns of leaves and flowers; the roof of the buiding was reinforced with six wooden rafter bars, each end of the bars was carved with the shape of carp gills and dragon heads, the main carving decoration of leaves, flowers and many Vietnamese traditional symbols such as apricot and birds, butterflies, bamboos, roosters, bats and cloud,..etc – all of which were carved very skilfully in a certain order; the floor of the main building was paved with Chinese Tiles, the roof was paved with fish-scale tiles. Besides, the altar for worship of the deities and ancestors was built with the shape of an arch.

Nowadays, the residence of Mr. Vo still retains many valuable precious antiques such as 5 scrolls; 3 sets of couches; 3 altars carved with the symbols of supernatural creatures, 4 quarters and fairy tales; a pair of parallel sentences; 2 sets of doussie plank; 1 plate of big word “Hien Dai Duong”; 1 set of transom decorated with birds and flowers carvings; 4 bronze vessels of flowers; 2 antique wine pots and 2 bronze censers in the shape of dragon.

The current generation of Mr. Vo’s family has followed the tradition of annual worshiping their ancestors and they has celebrated the land offering ceremonials on April 14^th of the Lunar Calendar, which includes original cuisine such as pork head and traditional sweet gruel.

In the view of the unique structure of the building, the house was guided to develop into a community-based tourism by Japan International Cooperation Agency ( JICA ) and local Department of Culture and Tourism. Besides, it was recognized as historical and cultural relic at provincal level. According to the Decision No. 2711/QD-UBND on October 30^th, 2014 of the People’s Committee of Tien Giang. Since then, the ancient house of Mr. Vo and other residences in the ancient village of Dong Hoa Hiep have been invested in preserving and developing in order to attract the domestic and foreign tourists.

MSc  Mr. NGUYEN MANH THANG
     Director of Tien Giang Museum