Former Suzuki Family Residence

A Tea Room Built in 1963

The Former Suzuki Family Residence Annex (旧鈴木家住宅離れ, also written Kyu Suzukike Jutaku Hanare) stands behind the main house in Mitsu 1-chōme, Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture, was built in Shōwa 38 (1963), and was entered on Japan's national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 24 June 2021.

Twenty-four square metres. That is the whole building. It runs on a north-south axis behind the main house, single storey, gabled and pantiled, joined to the main house by a corridor. Inside are two rooms: a six-mat tea room to the north and a four-mat anteroom to the south.

The arithmetic is worth pausing over. A building registered as a national cultural property in 2021 that was finished in 1963 had been standing for fifty-eight years. Japan's registration system covers structures of roughly fifty years or more, so this annex crossed the threshold only shortly before it was assessed. Postwar buildings entering the national record is a comparatively recent development, and this one shows what qualifies.

An Open Tea Room

Tea rooms are conventionally dim and enclosed. Small windows, controlled light, a deliberate withdrawal from the outside world. The official description of this one uses a different word: open.

The west side is fitted with hakidashi openings, sliding panels running down to floor level, giving onto an ochi-en veranda set lower than the room floor and sheltered by a copper-sheet eave. Slide those open and the room addresses the garden directly. The design leans on sukiya conventions and makes heavy use of round logs left close to their natural form, timber that has not been squared off.

The formal elements are all present. On the east wall sits the toko alcove with a tokowaki beside it fitted with a jibukuro, a low cabinet at floor level. At the western end of the north wall opens a nijiriguchi, the small crawl-through entrance that obliges every guest to stoop on the way in. A daimyō and a merchant enter a tea room the same way. Overhead, the ceiling is a sudare-tenjō, woven reed laid like a hanging blind.

So the room keeps the ritual apparatus intact and then opens one whole side to the light. That combination is the point of it.

The tea room carries the name Barushuan (芭流朱庵). The owners' account holds that it was designed by Shigetō Sōchi and that it survives from a period when tea practice was widespread in Mitsuhama. Matsuyama City's own announcement notes that the annex is understood by tradition to date from 1963, wording that leaves a little room, and the family's site places it in the 1950s or early 1960s, which agrees.

Registration fell in the 99th round under number 38-0155, on the criterion for buildings contributing to the historic character of the national landscape. The main house was registered the same day under 38-0154, and the city's assessment treated the pair together as conveying the free-spirited character of Mitsuhama in the Taishō and Shōwa eras. The main house was itself altered in 1963, the year this annex went up, which suggests one campaign of work rather than two.

Visiting the Annex

The property is a private home, occupied and in use, operating under the name Kyu Suzuki-tei. Tea ceremony sessions are held in this annex, and a beginner-friendly session lasting an hour has been offered at around 2,500 yen per person, with a chair provided for anyone who finds sitting on the heels difficult. Rooms are also let by the hour, and the main house takes one overnight group per night. An ohagi café operates from 12:00 to 18:00, closed Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays.

Booking is the way in. Ring 070-5510-3145 or contact the owners through their official site. Arriving unannounced at somebody's house and asking to see the tea room is not a plan.

Go through the nijiriguchi if you are offered the choice. Reading about a crawl-through entrance and using one are different experiences, and the second takes about four seconds.

The residential address is 3-13 Mitsu 1-chōme; the parcel number in the cultural property record, 174 and adjacent, will not help a navigation app. From central Matsuyama, take the Iyotetsu Takahama Line to Mitsu Station and walk, or continue to Minatoyama and cross on the Mitsu no Watashi, a free ferry counted as part of the city road network, which takes about three minutes. Photography inside should be agreed with the owners beforehand.