The traditional thinking concept of Chinese people who want to promote and suppress first is very different from that of western people. Different from the concept of publicity and exposure, China people's thinking concept is more subtle. "The trunk in the sleeve is big and the sun and moon in the basin are long" is the design and construction concept of Yanshan Garden Gate. Located at the northern end of the whole park, the gate is a heavy pavilion-style gatehouse on the vacant land more than 20 meters between Shenyutan and Qingluoxi Lake. The architectural form was a popular Huizhou architecture at that time, with horse-headed walls at both ends and stone door frames in the middle, including doors, mortar and wooden doors. The gate is only 1.8m wide and 2.8m high. It doesn't look like the gate of Yanshan Garden in any way. Above the door frame, there is an inked bluestone plaque with the words "Yanshan Villa" written by Chen Li, an essayist and calligrapher in Panyu, Guangdong Province, written in small seal script. The doors on both sides are also embedded in the wall with ink bluestone, and Chen Liyong uses the couplet of Tao Yuanming's poem "There are many beautiful days in spring and autumn, and the forest garden has no vulgar feeling" written by Xiao Li. Inside the gate, there are two stone pillars in front, which form a wooden corridor arch with clouds carved inside. There is a 30 cm high relief stone base under the stone pillar, which is very beautiful. The gate extends more than 20 meters to the north, which is the small lake of Qingluoxi. The owner used the terrain and paved the ground with blue bricks to get an ingot-shaped power distribution square with stone steps by the lake to enter the water and become a boating dock. In addition, a suspension bridge was built at the entrance of Qingluoxi Lake, where the river of Daning River Garden flows, to cross the lake and communicate with the road outside the park, and a clearing was trimmed, paved with slate and stone fence for parking carriages and sedan chairs (that is, today's parking lot). Pedestrians can only reach the distribution square in front of the door through the suspension bridge controlled by the Northwest Carved Building.
Taking Rushan Mountain, which extends more than 50 meters to the southeast of the gate, as a barrier, not only blocks the panoramic view of Yanshan Garden, but also makes people feel that Yanshan Garden is just a small manor built on the mountain, creating a feng shui pattern of "having a photo in front (a small round lake is like a mirror) and leaning back (backing)" at the gate. Whether this is the owner's intentional orientation or nature can't be proved today. The gate of Yanshan Garden is an inward-leaning underground gate. Through the use of barriers, screens, partitions and other landscaping techniques, the space inside the door is extended to the outside of the door, which doubles the whole space and makes the gatehouse pavilion look like a flat ground and fly in the air. After entering the park, there are stone walls, stone mountains and vines climbing among the trees, and there is no way out. Between the mountains and the water, this is a great disappointment. If you look at the forest carefully, you can see a deep path winding into the distance.