Many are citing it as the largest fine ever levied by the local government in a case of home renovations: The private owner of the villa at 888 Julu Lu was recently fined a hefty 30.5 million RMB (over 4.45 million USD) after almost entirely demolishing the building illegally.

*** Left: the destroyed villa; right: what it used to look like basically. Image courtesy of Xinmin Weekly. The villa, built in the 1930s by Shanghai OG architect and developer Laszlo Hudec, is classified as a heritage building that falls under the local government's protection. Evidently, with these buildings, they can be privately owned and renovated, but their owners have to go through a set process before they can make significant changes. Significant changes like, say, knocking the whole damn thing down and rebuilding it from scratch. Stoking the fires of public outrage regarding the callous demolition of a Shanghai heritage building was the news that the actual owner of the building and the person behind the "refurbishment" is a "fuerdai girl" (nouveau riche), born in the '90s, who secured the property for a record-breaking 83.8 million RMB in 2015. She, allegedly, didn't sort her paperwork out. After much ballyhooing with trying to track the girl down, the owner's mother surnamed Wang was held accountable for the damages, along with the architecture firm, along with the construction company, along with Jing'an local officials who were involved in (or neglected to stop) the project. Mrs. Wang has also been ordered to restore the building to its original state in 10 months -- a nearly impossible task experts are declaring. Big lessons learned from this case, the government says. They've started investigating the 159 historically protected buildings in the Jing'an district to make sure each one is under the control and protection of the authorities. Quick, time to rip out that hot tub you installed into the Hengshan Moller Villa!