Anyone who visits Bac Lieu would like to stop at the locally famous House of Bac Lieu Dude (now Bac Lieu Dude Hotel) either for an overnight stay or a quick look. The house is located at No.13 on Dien Bien Phu Street in Ward 3 and still attracts many curious visitors.



The house of Bac Lieu Dude was built in 1917-1919 and designed by a French architect. 

For many years, the nickname "Bac Lieu Dude" has been applied to children of the rich landlords who had a well-off and loose lifestyle in Southern Vietnam under the French colonial time. 
The most typical man for this title was Tran Trinh Huy (birth name Tran Trinh Quy), born in 1900 in Vinh Hung Hamlet, Vinh Loi District, Bac Lieu Province. He died in 1974 in Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City.



During the time of French colonialism, the land belonging to the Southern region, due to its early reclamation, was re-allocated to local owners, resulting in the formation of a new class of great landlords. 

Those rich families often sent their children to Saigon to study at French schools or overseas to France. However, most of those rich boys and girls were badly influenced by the beauty and hustle and bustle of big cities, and with money cast from their parents, they tried to show off their wealth by living a loose lifestyle. 

Among them, Tran Trinh Huy topped the list of Bac Lieu braggarts because of his constant financial flaunting as well as his second to none playboy lifestyle.
Huy’s father was landlord Tran Trinh Trach who had 74 farms with 110,000 ha of rice fields, nearly 100,000 ha of salt fields, dozens of houses in Bac Lieu and many luxurious villas in the big cities of Can Tho, Saigon, Vung Tau and Da Lat.


The "House of Bac Lieu Dude" is a 2-floor building with two bedrooms and two main halls on the ground floor and three bedrooms and two main halls on the second floor.

A grand staircase was situated in the centre of the house. The bedroom in the northeast was reserved for Tran Trinh Trach, which was opposite a room reserved for his son, "Bac Lieu Dude" Tran Trinh Huy.
For nearly a century, the house has been kept almost intact to its original design. In 2003 Bac Lieu Tourism Company invested in upgrading the house and made it a hotel and cultural-tourist site. 


The mansion has opened for tourists again in early 2023, after months of close for repair.

After a long period of temporary closure for restoration, the mansion has opened again. In the photo is a car used by Tran Trinh Huy.


Tran Tuyen