Sanada Family Residence Guest Room

A Western Parlor Beneath Tatami Rooms

The Sanada Family Residence Guest Room (眞田家住宅客間, Sanada-ke Jūtaku Kyakuma) is a two-storey guest house built in 1928 south of the main house and west of the inner reception wing in the Sanada compound, Higashimachi, Mihara City, Hiroshima Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Building) on 4 February 2021. It stacks a Western-style parlor on the ground floor beneath Japanese tatami rooms above.

The roof is a Yosemune-zukuri hip roof, tiled with some copper. On the ground floor, a single-storey section pushes out toward the garden on the south, and the whole floor, including that projection, is one Western room with a parquet floor and triple windows on the south and west walls. Upstairs are two Zashiki tatami rooms, with a veranda edged by a Kōran railing that wraps from the south around to the east and looks down on the garden. The building area is 109 square meters.

Why It Was Registered

The Sanada Family Residence Guest Room was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs praises it as a skilful combination of Western and Japanese reception spaces in one building.

Wealthy households of the early Shōwa era often added a Western wing or parlor beside the main house for receiving visitors. The Sanada family did not build a separate Western house; they put the parlor downstairs and the tatami rooms on top. A guest's reception changed simply by climbing the stairs. Of all the buildings in the compound, this one catches the mood of its own time most directly.

Parlor Below, Veranda Above

In the national database, the photograph of the ground floor of the Sanada Family Residence Guest Room is captioned as the reception room. Its parquet, small pieces of wood laid in a pattern, gives a feel underfoot entirely unlike tatami. The triple windows on two sides bring light into the projecting section as well.

Upstairs the mood shifts. The two tatami rooms open onto the railed veranda, and from there you would look across the garden to the roofs of the reception wing to the east.

From outside, the step between the hip roof and the lower projection is the building's signature. The parlor reaches into the garden; the upper rooms open to it through the veranda. Both floors face the same garden, each in its own way.

Visiting

The Sanada Family Residence Guest Room stands on the garden side, south of the main house, and cannot be seen from the old Sanyo Road. It is private, the interior is closed, and we found no public opening as of September 2026.

The national database carries photographs of the exterior and the reception room, supplied by the Mihara City Board of Education, which show the parquet floor and triple windows. Directions and general visiting notes are on the Sanada Family Residence page.