First published in 2001. In 1936 Mr. Henry Inn, a connoisseur of Chinese Art, made his tenth extensive tour of his motherland to study the designs of houses and gardens. He travelled from Canton to Peiping and from Shanghai to Wuch'ang, visiting many homes of culture and refinement built according to the traditional patterns of the art of house and garden making elaborated through centuries. It was a rare privilege granted few travellers. With the kind permission of his hosts he photographed and sketched characteristic details. On his return to Honolulu he showed the pictures and drawings to friends interested in architecture, interior decoration and landscape gardening. They all recognized their value, both as a record of a unique and significant art, and as suggestive material for Western builders and garden makers and urged their publication in book form.

The book when it first appeared was also well received by House and Garden Architecture Forum and Landscape Architecture. "The handsome book will be a joy to possess for those who love beauty in architecture and cultivated nature," so wrote Pearl S. Buck. In 1940 Henry Inn of Honolulu, art collector, designer, and photographer, produced a collection of Chinese architectural pictures that is extraordinary.

Although probably the only record of its kind, many of the photographs were taken as recently as 1936. Of those locations very few remain if any. A veteran traveller to his ancestral homeland, Henry In had an extraordinarily wide set of acquaintances which gave him an entrance into some of the choicest homes and gardens throughout China. This combination of artistic shell and unusual opportunity are unique.