The castle naked Castle is named for went up in 1910, fell in 1960 and was rebuilt for the hotel, which opened in 2017. Both sit on Moganshan, a mountain in China’s Zhejiang Province, in Deqing County within Huzhou prefecture, 200 to 240 km from Shanghai and only 60 km from Hangzhou. Moganshan Road, the Shanghai art district that owns most of the search traffic for this name, is 200 km away.
Nobody from this site has slept in the building. So what follows describes it and stops there. No score, no ranking, no account of rooms we have never walked into.
Four things the record settles
| Item | What we have |
|---|---|
| Opened | 2017 |
| Rooms | about 95 keys |
| The building | a castle style house of 1910, which collapsed in 1960 and was rebuilt for the hotel |
| Who built it | David Duncan Main (梅藤更), a Scottish physician and missionary |
Opening date, room count and origin of the building, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026.
The castle collapsed in 1960 and was rebuilt as the hotel, Jiemian (界面新闻), 25 January 2017, tier 2. https://www.jiemian.com/article/1087916.html
“Keys” means rooms, and the property is part of naked Retreats. David Duncan Main (梅藤更), an Edinburgh graduate, came to Hangzhou in 1881 to run the Guangji Hospital (广济医院).
梅藤更 (David Duncan Main), head of the Guangji Hospital from 1881, Zhejiang University and University of Edinburgh Institute (浙江大学爱丁堡大学联合学院), 12 March 2019, tier 2. https://zje.zju.edu.cn/2019/0312/c76514a2795013/page.htm
The castle is 107 years older than the hotel
In 1910 a Scottish doctor who came to China as a missionary built himself a house in English castle style. He was not alone. That same year about 300 foreigners, most of them American and British, held summer homes on these slopes: missionaries, businessmen and customs officials. They came in July because Shanghai summers were unbearable and, before air conditioning, dangerous.
The colony was already old by then. American Protestant missionaries found the mountain in the 1890s, and the earliest Western villas date from 1896 to 1898.
Main built at the top of the boom. Nine years on, the foreign owned stock was 154 villas. By 1929 it was 78, and in 1949 the foreigners left for good.
Hill station figures for 1910, the 1920s and 1929, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026.
Why this villa and not the other 249
| Figure | |
|---|---|
| Foreign summer households here in 1910 | about 300 |
| Stone villas from that era still standing | about 250 |
| Of those, bookable for a night | a handful; this castle, rebuilt on its 1910 site, is the best known |
Most are private homes or private leases. Others are fenced off or under restoration.
So of the whole hill station, this is where the line to today’s resort trade is easiest to see. Summers here sit about 6 to 7 °C below what Shanghai and Hangzhou get, and that difference is the whole reason a town grew up here.
Seeing the rest means a walk and a lot of garden walls. The stone villas covers what survives, and the history has the dates.
Where the Castle sits inside naked Retreats
The mountain then spent fifty years out of the tourism business, which makes the next dates interesting. naked Retreats is a small group of properties around Moganshan, founded by Grant Horsfield, a South African.
| Year | Property | What it was |
|---|---|---|
| 2007 | naked Home Village | The first yangjiale (洋家乐), a farmstay opened by a foreigner, at Sanjiuwu, a hamlet of Laoling. Its farmhouses became part of naked Castle in 2017 |
| 2011 | naked Stables | The first resort in mainland China to certify LEED Platinum |
| 2017 | naked Castle | About 95 rooms, in a rebuilding of Main’s 1910 castle, which collapsed in 1960 |
Opening years and room totals across the naked group, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026.
The naked Home Village farmhouses incorporated into naked Castle in 2017, Zhejiang Online (浙江在线), 30 October 2018, tier 2. https://zjnews.zjol.com.cn/zjnews/zjxw/201810/t20181030_8611894.shtml
The Laoling and Sanjiuwu guide follows the original farmhouses and the hamlet around them.
naked Retreats was not the first foreigner back. Mark Kitto opened Moganshan Lodge on a 2003 lease. But 2007 is when the wave started, and guesthouse investors here come from 18 countries.
The price band, and what it actually covers
We do not hold a separate dated RMB rate for naked Castle. Check the live listing for your room type and nights; the season and the day of the week change the price.
For scale, the local trade sets its high end threshold at RMB 1,500, and rooms above that line grew 42 percent year on year. Luxury stays sets that against the rest of the mountain.
Deqing station, then the transfer you cannot skip
Money settled, the harder constraint is the clock.
Your station is Deqing (德清). No station called Moganshan exists today; the old one in Wukang is now Deqing West, on the slow line. Deqing station: which exit, which taxi, which bus explains.
| Leg | Detail |
|---|---|
| From Shanghai Hongqiao | 63 to 93 min on 6 daily direct trains |
| From Hangzhou East | 13 to 17 min, 16 trains a day |
| Deqing station to the mountain | 30 to 40 minutes by road |
| Taxi or van for that leg | about RMB 100 |
| Y1 shuttle instead | RMB 10, seven a day, stops in Moganshan town |
Now the constraint that breaks arrival plans. Private cars stop at the scenic area boundary. Three points handle the swap: Yucun, Fatou and Houwu. All work 08:00 to 18:00 and no later, so landing at Deqing at 19:00 means you have missed them.
Which side of that line your bed is on decides whether this hits you. Message the hotel before booking the train, not after you land. Getting around covers the transfers.
What to ask before you book
| Ask about | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Room types and what each one includes | The categories are not obvious from the listing photographs |
| Whether the room sits in the castle or a newer building, and what heats it | The castle is the reason people come, not every key is inside it, and winter heating varies by room |
| Which transfer centre serves the property, and the 18:00 close | This is the question that decides your arrival evening |
| Foreign passports and cards | Under a joint reply of 24 May 2024, hotels may not turn foreign guests away for want of a licence. Refusals still get reported, so confirm in writing |
We do not reprint review scores from booking sites either. They are somebody else’s numbers, gathered by a method nobody can inspect.
One last naming problem: Moganshan Solvang Village is a different property here. If this is not your place, all hotels has the rest and money and payments covers cards.
Opening date and room count come from the August 2026 property record. The farmstay history is supported by the dated Zhejiang Online report above.
Last checked 3 November 2026 by Echo Peng. Prices, timetables and entry rules on this mountain move without notice, so confirm anything you are booking around.
Photographs on this site are representative illustrations, not documentary images of the specific building, property or service described.
