Cover A still from Business Proposal (2022), filmed in the courtyard of the Piet Boon house. The series ran on SBS and became one of the year’s most-watched Korean dramas on Netflix globally (Photo: SBS South Korea)
A still from Business Proposal (2022), filmed in the courtyard of the Piet Boon house. The series ran on SBS and became one of the year’s most-watched Korean dramas on Netflix globally (Photo: SBS South Korea)
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Ninety minutes from Seoul, we tour a granite residence designed by Dutch architect Piet Boon, which has become the most filmed chaebol home on South Korean television
The Piet Boon House at Oak Valley Residential Resort sits 90 minutes by car from central Seoul, in the forested mountains of Gangwon Province. It has two bedrooms, a wine bar, an outdoor pool, and a filmography spanning at least a dozen Korean dramas. In the Business Proposal, it was the family compound of a food-industry heir. In Little Women, it housed a politician whose wealth turned out to be criminal. In My Demon, King the Land, and The Golden Spoon, it played variations on the same role: the chaebol home, austere and expensive, set apart from the city.
Read more: Inside Seoul’s chaebol neighbourhoods: where Korea’s wealthiest business families live
Above The rear elevation of the house is clad in long horizontal bricks of local granite, with a shallow reflecting pool running along the garden terrace (Photo: Studio Piet Boon)
The rear elevation of the house is clad in long horizontal bricks of local granite, with a shallow reflecting pool running along the garden terrace (Photo: Studio Piet Boon)
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The brief
Above A still from Little Women (2022) where a Genesis G90 pulls up to the forecourt (Photo: TVN South Korea)
A still from Little Women (2022) where a Genesis G90 pulls up to the forecourt (Photo: TVN South Korea)
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The house was commissioned in 2010 by Hyundai Development Company, which wanted a model residence for Oak Valley, a high-end golf and ski resort that also houses Museum SAN, the Tadao Ando-designed gallery set into the surrounding hillside. The brief was to produce a single home that could serve as the design template for up to 200 residences across the resort. The company turned to Amsterdam-based Studio Piet Boon, a Dutch firm whose work tends toward interiors of considered restraint and high material quality.
Above The arrival courtyard of the Piet Boon house at Oak Valley, planted with white birch and approached via a stone-paved path (Photo: Studio Piet Boon)
Above A still from Dali and Cocky Prince (2021), filmed at the birch courtyard entrance to the house (Photo: SBS South Korea)
The arrival courtyard of the Piet Boon house at Oak Valley, planted with white birch and approached via a stone-paved path (Photo: Studio Piet Boon)
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Boon’s response was to treat the site as the starting point. The exterior is clad entirely in local granite, cut into long horizontal bricks that align with the stone of the ground. The studio described the effect as a house that appears to grow from the rock rather than sit upon it. The plan is organised across multiple volumes connected by a single hallway, a sequence Boon called “the flow of the river,” narrow at the entrance and opening progressively toward a panoramic view across the forested valley.
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The rooms
Above The living room, furnished in the studio’s signature palette of off-whites and warm neutrals, with floor-to-ceiling glazing looking onto the birch courtyard beyond (Photo: Studio Piet Boon)
The living room, furnished in the studio’s signature palette of off-whites and warm neutrals, with floor-to-ceiling glazing looking onto the birch courtyard beyond (Photo: Studio Piet Boon)
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The interior runs across three floors: two bedrooms, a living room, a study, an entertainment room, a wine bar, and a terrace with an outdoor pool. Floor-to-ceiling glass fills every volume with natural light. Flagstone floors run throughout. The colour palette is subdued, and the walls were designed from the outset with built-in art-hanging solutions. The house accommodates a maximum of four guests.
Above One of two bedrooms, with dark-stained timber joinery and an open connection to a sitting area (Photo: Studio Piet Boon)
Above The kitchen is fitted with handleless cabinetry in a greyed oak finish and a central island in the same material (Photo: Studio Piet Boon)
One of two bedrooms, with dark-stained timber joinery and an open connection to a sitting area (Photo: Studio Piet Boon)
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The interiors signal wealth without specifying it. No European antiques, no gilded surfaces. The aesthetic sits closer to the gallery-like register that has come to define the homes of Seoul’s actual elite: material quality over ornament, negative space treated as a design element in its own right.
See also: Cross-border wealth: where foreign tycoons buy in Seoul
The cast list
Above A still from Business Proposal (2022), in which the house appeared as the family compound of Kang Tae-moo (Ahn Hyo-seop), CEO of Go Food and heir to the Geumhwa Group conglomerate (Photo: SBS South Korea)
A still from Business Proposal (2022), in which the house appeared as the family compound of Kang Tae-moo (Ahn Hyo-seop), CEO of Go Food and heir to the Geumhwa Group conglomerate (Photo: SBS South Korea)
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In Business Proposal (2022), the house served as the family compound of Kang Tae-moo (Ahn Hyo-seop), CEO of Go Food and heir to the Geumhwa Group conglomerate. The series ran on SBS and became one of the year’s most-watched Korean dramas on Netflix globally.
The same year, Little Women used the same exterior for the Park family home, the residence of politician Park Jae-sang (Uhm Ki-joon), his wife Sang-ah (Uhm Ji-won), and their daughter Hyo-rin. Where Business Proposal used granite and glass to suggest romantic aspiration, Little Women used them to suggest menace. The architecture did not change between productions.
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Above A still from The Penthouse: War in Life, filmed on the garden terrace where the stone-paved outdoor dining area and floor-to-ceiling glazing (Photo: SBS South Korea)
Above A still from Little Women (2022), filmed against the long granite wall that connects the house’s interconnected volumes (Photo: TVN South Korea)
A still from The Penthouse: War in Life, filmed on the garden terrace where the stone-paved outdoor dining area and floor-to-ceiling glazing (Photo: SBS South Korea)
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Other appearances span genres: The Penthouse: War in Life, Dali and Cocky Prince, Crazy Love, Melancholia, Kill Heel. The house was designed as a modular template, adaptable across different spatial configurations without compromising its core aesthetic, which may explain why production crews keep returning to it.
The address
Above The Oak Valley Resort golf course, set against the forested mountains of Gangwon Province (Photo: Oak Valley Resort)
Above The resort’s restaurant, with floor-to-ceiling windows framing the granite rock face and a painted ceiling in yellow above the dining room (Photo: Oak Valley Resort)
The Oak Valley Resort golf course, set against the forested mountains of Gangwon Province (Photo: Oak Valley Resort)
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The house is available to rent at approximately $10,000 per night, with a maximum of four guests. Private chef dining is included; Korean or Western breakfast and dinner courses are available, along with an on-site barbecue option. It does not accept walk-ins. The house sits within the Oak Valley complex alongside golf courses, ski facilities, and the Tadao Ando museum, which has so far accumulated a considerably shorter drama filmography than its neighbour.
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Jennifer Choo is Regional Managing Editor of Tatler Homes, covering architecture, interior design, and art across Asia. Based in Malaysia, she oversees regional content on luxury residential design and contemporary art collections. Legally trained but choosing to pursue her passion for design, she previously led notable design publications and worked as an interior stylist and art consultant for property developers, design firms, and private clients.
