Ban Phra Tub Jai

Baan Phra Tub Jai, locally known as Ban Sao Roi Ton, the “Hundred Pillars House,” isn’t the centuries-old merchant mansion it can look like. The current building was designed and built between 1972 and 1976 by its owner, without an architect, using 130 teak pillars salvaged from older structures; each post is roughly 300 years old, which is where the antique feel comes from even though the house itself is a 20th-century construction.

Three interlinked halls sit under a stepped, multi-tiered Lanna-style roofline with carved gable boards at each peak — the kind of decorative work found on genuinely old northern Thai houses, reapplied here at a scale few surviving originals can match. Inside, five furnished bedrooms are kept as period rooms, filled with antique furniture, ceramics, and household objects rather than left empty for display. A covered morning room catches early light for sitting out, and the reception hall’s carved furniture was hand-cut from more of the same salvaged teak. Wooden floors creak underfoot throughout, and most of the collection is displayed with Thai-only labelling.

The result reads as a monument to what Phrae’s teak-trade wealth could still buy in the 1970s, decades after the region’s own logging boom had already peaked — as much a statement piece as a heritage home. It sits on roughly 34 rai of grounds along the Phrae-Long road (Highway 1023), a short taxi or tuk-tuk ride from the old town’s moated centre.

For a second, more conventionally old teak house in the same town, Baan Wong Buri is the closer comparison — a genuine turn-of-the-century residence rather than a later reconstruction. Seeing both back to back makes the contrast clearer than either visit alone.

Insider Tip: Go in the morning — the wooden floors and unshaded pillars heat up fast once the sun is overhead, and Phrae’s afternoons run warm most of the year.

Watch out: Almost nothing inside is labelled in English; if the construction history and pillar carving matter to your visit, read up beforehand or bring someone who can translate.

Baan Phra Tub Jai is open daily from 08:00 to 17:00. Entry is 100 THB for foreigners and 40 THB for Thai nationals, the same for adults and children. The house sits at 59 Moo 13, Pa Maet subdistrict, Mueang Phrae district, on the road toward Long district.