Drawing upon over a decade of research, Home beyond the House: Transformation of Life, Place, and Tradition in Rural China responds to the 2006 Chinese national policy of “Building a New Socialist Countryside” by posing a fundamental question: what is the meaning of home for people living in vernacular settlements in rural China? The primary dataset, consisting of 610 photographs taken by residents of Yanxia—a place that has since vanished from the map—along with in-depth interviews, reveals that the meaning of home for rural residents extends beyond the physical boundary of a house and homestead. Instead, it is rooted in cultural traditions embraced by individuals and collectively shared by the community, including kinship structure, family-based economic practices, and an evolving relationship with the land where their families had lived for generations. By employing the photovoice method, this work not only empowers rural residents by giving them a voice, but also preserves the essence of rural lives, the built environment, vernacular place,and cultural landscape for future generations.