What you are looking at is the famous Tomb Villa, located in the Vietnamese province of Ben Tre. It looks like an ordinary household from the outside, but once you enter it, you will realize that there is an actual marble tomb along with a shrine in the villa.
The people living in the Tomb Villa are accustomed to having the tomb in their house. The Tomb Villa of Tan Thac Commune sure sounds unbelievable and even a myth. But the unique villa has been documented online for more than ten years now. It is an actual inhabited house with an occupied tomb located right in the middle of the living room.
The tale of this renowned landmark in Ben Tre province started on January 28, 1960. A local woman by the name of Dang Thi Nhan gave birth to her daughter who she named Tran Thi Kim Lien. Lien grew up poor but at the age of eighteen, fell in love with a fishing boat owner and both eventually emigrated to the United States. She took up the profession of a manicurist and later on started her interior design business, thus allowing herself to live a very comfortable life and also enabling her to send money to her family back home.
She was visiting her hometown during the early 2000s and told her mother and brothers that she intended to come back home eventually. She requested them to build a spacious villa, replacing the old hut where she grew up and even offered to fund the whole project. She wanted to have her family reunited under the same roof. The villa was completed in 2006, but Tran Thi Kim Lien was able to only spend a few months in the now-famous Tomb Villa.
In 2007, after she moved back from the US, Lien got sick and was diagnosed with cancer. She sought treatment, even in the US, but nothing panned out. She told her mother, ‘I never got to live in a mansion, so when I die, please bury me in this one.’ Lien died on May 10, 2007, and family brought her dead body back to Vietnam and acted on her final request.
Currently, the youngest brother of Lien lives in Tomb Villa with his family. What do you think of Tomb Villa and would you be willing to live in a house with a tomb?