Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence Annex

About the Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence Annex

The Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence Annex (瀬上嶋貫本家住宅離れ, Senoue Shimanuki Honke Jūtaku Hanare) is a two-storey guest wing built behind the main house of the Shimanuki head family estate in Senoue-machi, Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture, in the Taishō era (1912 to 1926), and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2013.

The Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence Annex stands off the north side of the main house, toward the west, with its ridge running north to south. It is a timber building with a gabled roof clad in copper (Dōban-buki) and a building area of 66 m². Where the main house and front gate face the highway, the annex looks inward, toward the garden.

Two Ten-Mat Rooms Upstairs and Down

The plan could hardly be simpler: two rooms of ten tatami mats on each floor, four in all. Nothing here serves daily chores. This is a building made for receiving and lodging guests.

Along the east side runs a veranda closed with glass doors, so the rooms look out over the garden through the glass. Large panes were still a costly material in the Taishō years, and using them for a whole run of doors says something about the family's means.

Coffered Ceilings and Black Persimmon

What the Agency for Cultural Affairs dwells on in the Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence Annex is the joinery inside. Some rooms have coffered ceilings that curve gently upward at the edges, a raised form that signals a room of higher rank.

The alcove fittings (Zashiki-kazari) make heavy use of prized timbers, black persimmon (kurogaki) among them. Kurogaki is persimmon heartwood streaked with black, found in only a small share of trees and reserved for alcove posts and sills. The agency calls the finish lavish and the workmanship excellent, and sums up the building as an annex of real refinement.

Registered for its contribution to the historic landscape, the annex barely shows from the road, yet its timbers and ceilings record how comfortably a landlord family lived in the 1910s and 1920s.

Visiting the Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence Annex

Because the Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence Annex sits behind the main house on the north-west side, it is hard to see from the old highway. Visits to the estate are by reservation only, and the official site does not say whether tours enter the annex rooms or view them from the garden. Ask about the annex, and about photography, when you book.

Directions and booking details are on the Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence page.