Kimura Family Residence Detached Wing

A small building put up to face the water

Kimura Family Residence Detached Wing (木村家住宅離れ, Kimura-ke Jūtaku Hanare) is a two-storey timber structure at Mitsu 1-chome in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, built in the early Shōwa period and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 29 March 2019.

It stands in the northeast corner of the Kimura property, pressed against the north wall of the storehouse, and covers only 21 square metres. The roof is Kirizuma-zukuri finished in metal sheet. A covered passage at the north end of the west side links the building to the main house, so a person could cross from the shop at the front of the plot to this room without stepping outside. The ground floor is plain: a corridor on the north, a store room on the south, a board floor, an earth floor and a lavatory, with a doorway at the north end of the east wall.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the building to the early Shōwa period, a range of 1926 to 1945. Matsuyama City adds what the family remembers: that the second head of the household, Kimura Matasaburō, put it up as a study room for his children, and that relatives later used it while recovering from illness.

Where the shoreline used to be

One line in the city's account changes how the building reads. The road that now runs behind the property was not laid until 1936. Before that the sea came up directly to this edge of the plot. Kimura Family Residence Detached Wing was designed for that older condition, when the water was a few steps from the back door and the harbour traffic passed within earshot.

Go up the staircase at the northwest end and the intention becomes obvious. The upper floor holds a six-mat room with an alcove, and the whole east wall is given over to a window with a railing, an armrest-height opening with a narrow railed sill in front of it. For a study room in a merchant household this is a generous amount of glass and a very specific view. A further opening was cut in the southwest corner of this floor so that the room connects directly into the storehouse next door, work that was probably done when the wing was built.

Why it was registered

The listing cites the criterion that a building contributes to the historic character of the national landscape, and Kimura Family Residence Detached Wing carries registration number 38-127, between the main house and the storehouse in the sequence of four buildings registered here on the same day in 2019.

Seen from the harbour street, the wing and the storehouse together form the seaward wall of the property, the face that a merchant house of 1881 presented to the water rather than to its customers. That pairing is what the registration protects. Small buildings of this kind, tucked behind the main block and rebuilt or demolished as families change, rarely survive with their original relationship to the rest of the plot intact.

The roof tells its own story of maintenance. Pantiles covered it until 2010, when they were stripped because of decay and replaced with metal sheet, the same change made to the storehouse in that year. The lighter covering keeps the building standing; it also flattens the original silhouette, which is worth knowing before you compare old photographs.

Visiting Kimura Family Residence Detached Wing

The property is privately owned and is looked after by a volunteer group, which opens it on the second and fourth Saturday of each month from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., when the main house runs as Kimura-tei Café. Visitors may look around the site during those hours, and further openings are held for concerts and other events. There is a winter break and dates move, so telephone 070-5510-3145 or check the operators' Instagram account before travelling. Whether the upstairs room of the wing can be entered depends on the day.

From central Matsuyama, take the Iyotetsu Takahama Line to Minatoyama Station, walk two minutes to the landing and cross on the Mitsu Ferry. The crossing is a section of city road, so it is free, and it operates from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. all year. The property lies about one minute from the Mitsu landing. Mitsu Station on the same line is a fifteen-minute walk. There is no parking, and the lanes are too narrow for comfortable driving.

Photography inside has not been confirmed as permitted, so ask the volunteers when you arrive. The east elevation faces the public street behind the property and can be seen at any time, which is the best way to understand how close the sea once was.