Songyang New Store | A Jiangnan Mountain Hideaway
We once made a promise—to meet good people in beautiful places and share a beautiful way of life. Over the years, DaLeZhiYe has traveled across mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas to find this ideal beauty for everyone. And we have come to understand: where you live, your ideals follow. This time, we journeyed to the hidden retreat of Jiangnan—Songyang—to bring you a traditional mountain village we spent five years shaping. Here, whether wise or gentle, you may be moved by its quiet beauty.
In cooking, low-temperature slow simmering is known to be healthier and a true test of the chef’s skill—requiring deep knowledge of the ingredients and perfect control of heat, technique, and timing to preserve the original taste. In today’s fast-paced boutique lodging industry, spending five years on one project is like treating XiaoHouShe Village as an evolving living artwork.
Over these five years, we observed this land like ecologists—learning spring rains, summer cicadas, autumn winds, winter snow, and each plant’s life cycle. We lived like anthropologists—understanding relationships within this 800m-high mountain village, drinking Dragon Boat tea with villagers, tasting homemade red yeast wine, eating chilled river-water melons in summer, and hanging fresh cured meat in winter. We became like children—exploring the village’s charm and designing unique rural experiences. Thus, morning glories along ridges, afternoon tea in rice fields, calves in sunset light, and calm window views—everything that touched us—were preserved, waiting for you to discover.
After five years, we built our new home in XiaoHouShe Village—the DaLeZhiYe Songyang Store. We preserved the village’s original contours, spatial rhythm, and familiar warmth. Here, we pass on the philosophy of slow mountain living—“coexisting with the mountains.” With modern design, we reinterpret farming culture and traditional stories, helping urban dwellers understand the deeper meaning of: “We are not only restoring buildings—we are reconnecting people with the land.”
【01 A Time Capsule Hidden in Mountain Folds】
The mountain road narrows into a faded ribbon disappearing into the lush southern Zhejiang landscape. After countless curves, a beam of sky flashes through bamboo, revealing the entire village—like a miniature Bonsai resting in the palm of a mountain god. Unlike other mist-wrapped or stream-carved Songyang villages, we chose to stand shoulder to shoulder with the mountains. At 800m altitude lies a rare flat plain, a semi-enclosed village, and complete terraced fields. XiaoHouShe Village, which moved us five years ago, now has only a few residents. Rammed-earth walls glow honey-yellow, black tile roofs bear rain traces, and terraces flow gently toward the horizon.
An uncle working in his field looks up, pauses, and smiles at us. Once quiet, this small plain surrounded by mountains now has our company. Soon, these 16 rooms will welcome many friends—drinking homemade red yeast wine in the view-framed restaurant, lingering in the rice-field café, or taking home Dragon Boat tea from our village market.
We hope rural cultural symbols return to authenticity—not staged, not dramatized, not like magazine spreads or award-winning photos. This is an organically grown, complete village shaped by time and nature. That is the true charm of Songyang’s traditional settlements.
【02 Let the Space Heal You】
This space is architecture. We preserved Songyang’s traditional layout—courtyards centered around the ancestral patio, corridors connected in “running-horse” style, mortise-and-tenon craftsmanship, and rammed-earth textures. Modern techniques and energy-saving systems were woven in to suit contemporary living. We expanded window openings for more light, raised ceiling heights, and refined many details to enhance comfort.
“Let concrete breathe, let light become medicine, let time soften again.” Several buildings sit around the terraced fields, surrounded by forest and greenery. Roof slopes echo the original village roofs, creating visual continuity. Morning light filters through beams, casting gradients like swaying shadows.
This space is also sound and scent—fermented wine notes, herbal bitterness, and wood polished by years. The crackle of fireplaces, summer rain, winter snow, and dawn walks with the village’s two small cows along fragrant mountain paths—this gentle “inefficiency” frees you from digital time and returns you to nature’s rhythm.
This space is also time and history distilled.
Songyang’s seasons are everyday life for villagers but a distant longing for city dwellers. Early spring brings waking mountains and fresh greens. Azaleas bloom red and white along winding paths. By late spring, wild and planted peach trees burst with buds.
Soon, tiny green peaches fill the branches—growing in layered sunlight and rain before becoming sweet mountain peaches. They may be unknown compared to Wuxi peaches, but never underestimate them—this “Jiangnan Turpan” has long produced juicy, fragrant fruit where grain once struggled.
Autumn means brewing fresh glutinous rice wine. In Songyang, nearly every household brews, but only a few are famous—red yeast wine, earthy rice wine, aged white wine. In winter, nothing beats sitting by the fire with a cup of years-aged brew. This year, the Songyang store adds a natural hot spring pool—giving you a reason at every winter moment to heal yourself with warm water and warm wine.
【03 A Once-a-Year Seasonal Ritual】
As Dragon Boat Festival approaches, village plants grow “nervous”—for it's time to harvest ingredients for the traditional Dragon Boat Tea. Although called “tea,” it contains almost no tea polyphenols but is made from various herbs and plants, each family keeping its own ancestral recipe. All share one rule: harvesting must happen exactly around Dragon Boat Festival.
Why Dragon Boat Festival? A village aunt explains—some plants can only be used after this day. Another village says: “Dragon Boat Day holds the year's strongest yang energy—best for drying everything, best for making this tea.” Here, every household drinks Dragon Boat Tea all year, hot or iced.
Mountain resources are limited, yet a highland village can still live gracefully. We use the old to honor history, and the new to explore the village’s future. We added modern comforts and removed unnecessary noise—becoming true rural newcomers, letting a few days of village life awaken our sense of nature.
In the future, more artisans may settle here, and more family activities may grow. What will come is unknown. But in these five years, we wrote a “Declaration of Slow”—allowing culture to grow naturally.
And in the next five years, we hope to continue practicing the mountain philosophy of slow living together with our friends.
【Room Introduction】
The guesthouse offers 16 rooms: 3 Songjian Comfort Twins, 2 Moxiu Comfort Kings, 3 Luanying Suites, 1 Yingxue Terrace King, 3 Niangchun Family Twins, 2 Yunlan Loft Courtyard Suites, and 2 Guixiao Loft Family Courtyard Suites.
Facilities include: dining, café, market, splash pool, fire pit, and more.
Moxiu · Comfort King
1 King Bed (1.8m×2m)
Accommodates 2 Guests
From ¥1865
Songjian · Comfort Twin
2 Twin Beds (1.3m×2m)
Accommodates 2 Guests
From ¥1532
Yunlan · Loft Courtyard Suite
1 King Bed (1.8m×2m)
Accommodates 2 Guests
From ¥2398