Taipei Story House

In Taipei, this half-timbered Tudor mansion was built in 1913 by tea merchant Chen Chao-chun, not to live in but to entertain overseas buyers and dignitaries with an England they had never seen. The guide follows the house's odd mix of brick and gables above, and a staircase inside that curls upward like a pagoda hidden in a British shell. It then traces the mansion's decades of drift as the city grew up around it, its heritage status not yet enough to save it. Look for that staircase first — it is the building arguing with itself.