Notice the hill in the background was bare. Trees & bushes were cut for wood-burning stoves. The hillsides were burnt regularly for fertilised soil.
The pond in front of the house was widened in the 60s.
Peter Tsui was the architect & contractor of his own house. It was a fusion of the East & West. The colonial-style front porche & European big windows with shutters were complemented by a roof of rural Chinese mansions; Chinese interror layout; a Chinese doorway with a sliding timber gate; and a kitchen at the back with a woodburning stove which had a huge wok. At the annex building, a beautiful hardwood floor was installed upstairs to serve as a party room for the teenage sons. After the War, HKU Alumni held its first dance there when hardwood dance floor could not be found anywhere.
Shek Lo was built on a piece of land calved out of the adjacent lychee orchard Lok Yuan (Happy Garden). It was an orchard of Pang Lok-saam, a founder of the Christian Hakka Village - Shung Him Tong (Worship Humility Church) Village in the midst of what is today Lung Yeuk Tau (Head of the Leaping Dragon) Heritage Trail. Pang & Peter Tsui formed the Luen On Tong (Alliance of Peace Association) from which the name of subsequent market town of Luen Wo Hui (Alliance of Harmony Market) stemmed. Pang Lok-saam, a lay preacher, became the first Chairman of Heung Yee Kuk.
