Yunju Hotel, located at Yunju Hutong.

Hedeyuan Hotel, located at Shijia Hutong. Photos: Courtesy of Sang Pengfei

Some authentic courtyard houses in the hutong of Danshilan are being opened to the public, giving visitors a chance to see an unvarnished slice of Beijing history. The buildings are an antidote to the adjacent botched renovation of the ancient Qianmen shopping street, which now looks like a strip mall.

"The Dashilan area, with its 800 years of history, has the best preserved hutong in Beijing…. We want to show tourists the history behind the courtyards," said Sang Pengfei, deputy secretary of the Dashilan Streets Working Committee.

Over the last three months, 15 courtyard houses have been designated tourist sites, with visitors welcome to go inside and explore for free.

The courtyard houses all have long histories and a tour - sometimes led by workers at these places - can help the visitors better understand the stories.

A residential home and a community center opened up in September. In the following month, four hotels and one restaurant became available for public viewing. Two weeks ago, eight more courtyards that are used as community service centers and kindergartens opened up as well.

The Jinxiu Zhuang hotel, located in Shijia Hutong, used to be a biaoju, a house where armed security escorts worked during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912). The two-story building was turned into a hotel after business gradually died out.

The courtyard house has a patio with a wooden frame, with grapevines hanging from it. All the doors are painted red, windows green, in the traditional courtyard style.

The hotel still has characteristics of its ancient days. Little has been done to alter the original layout besides dividing the building into 50 rooms, said Zhang Yuai, a worker at the hotel.

"The floor here is uneven and so is the windowsill, but we can't lay cement over it to smooth it out," she said, standing at the end of the second floor hallway. "Or else we'd lose its originality."

Zhang said the rooms fill up rather quickly, most of them booked by tourists, many of whom are foreigners who want to experience living in ancient times.

Yunju Hotel is a preserved courtyard house as well. Located at Yunju Hutong, the hotel is still in its original layout. Visitors walking in the door immediately see a stone screen wall, an original feature in many courtyard houses.

The door to the residential home was closed when the Metro Beijing reporter visited the site on Friday, with a notice attached to the door saying the homeowner is on a business trip.

Likewise, a sign is posted on the door of Alai Kezhan, a hotel on Shaanxi Lane, with the words "No visitors" printed on it. A front desk worker said the hotel is keeping tourists out for security reasons during the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which started on Friday. And after the season, the hotel will charge 5 yuan ($0.82) per visitor, not opening up for free as the government designated.