In 1959, the Retired Servicemen Engineering Agency built a small, red-tiled, traditional-style courtyard dwelling there. Each time Chiang Kai-shek visited this place, his mind was instinctively drawn to thoughts of his mother Wang Caiyu, and so he named it Tzuhu, or Lake Kindness.
1959 年榮工處建造的一棟四合院小紅瓦平房完成，蔣中正每每到此，思念母親王太夫人之心油然而生，於是更名為「慈湖」。