Songyuan Villa Introduction
The Songyuan Bieguan was built around 1943 and served as the office of the "Military Affairs Department" of Hualien Port. It was connected by pine forests to nearby places such as the "Broadcasting Station" (now the Hualien Station of the Central Broadcasting System), the "Coast Radio Station" (now Chunghwa Telecom), and the waterworks (now the Meilun Water Purification Plant). With a direct view of the beautiful entrance of the Meilun River into the sea at the North Beach, it has a natural high ground advantage, overlooking the Meilun River estuary, Hualien Port, and the Pacific Ocean. It easily monitored vessels entering and exiting the South Coast and aircraft taking off and landing at the South Airport. Additionally, the dense shade of the pine trees provided protection like a large umbrella, making it an important military command center for the Japanese Army in Hualien. After World War II, the area was taken over by the Kuomintang military and served as a recreational center for U.S. military advisors. It has since been managed by the Veterans Affairs Council of the Executive Yuan. In 2000, the Hualien County Government designated Songyuan as a "Historical Landscape Special Area," and in 2001, it was selected as one of the experimental sites for the "Reuse of Idle Space" by the Council for Cultural Affairs, and it was included in the "One Hundred Historical Sites of Taiwan."
