A Tudor house carried out of Tokyo
Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House is a timber-framed house of 2 storeys built in 1934 and now standing at Terada in Toride City, Ibaraki Prefecture, entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 27 February 2023.
It began life in Shirokanedai, in the Minato ward of Tokyo, as a private home. The client was Watanabe Jinkichi, born in 1906, a businessman and the fourteenth head of the Watanabe family of Gifu, and the house was planned for his married life. The exterior follows the Tudor manner that flourished in England between the 15th and 17th centuries: the ground floor faced in flat andesite slabs, the upper floor exposed half-timbering. The roof is tiled, and the registered floor area is 225 square metres.
Three men designed it. Yamamoto Setsuro, chief engineer of Amerika-ya, a firm that specialised in Western-style houses, set the overall plan. Endo Kenzo of the Endo Architectural Office produced the working drawings. Kon Wajiro took the decorative detail. Jinkichi and Endo had travelled through Europe and America together as young men, and the official Jinkichitei website relates that the half-timbered cottages they saw in England were what they wanted when they came home to build.
The house sits in Toride because it was moved there. In 2016 demolition began to look likely, and researchers and specialists put together a petition for its preservation. Maeda Corporation took the project on with the cooperation of Sumitomo Realty and Development, then the owner, dismantled the building into its component parts in 2018, and completed the reconstruction inside its own ICI Center in March 2022. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records both dates in the period column, giving 1934 for construction and 2022 for the move.
Registered after the move, not before
The criterion applied to Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House is that the building serves as a model of design, and its registration number is 08-0318. Toride City describes it as the only nationally registered tangible cultural property within the city. The Agency for Cultural Affairs rates it a masterpiece among Japan's Tudor houses, closely worked at every level, the plan and the smallest ornament alike.
The sequence is what makes this unusual. The house was taken apart in Tokyo, reassembled in Toride, and only then registered. That the move was not held against it reflects a judgement that the material and the design had travelled intact. Maeda Corporation has described its approach as living preservation: bringing the structure up to current building law while returning the original design faithfully.
There was so much original material to move because the house had escaped remodelling. According to the official Jinkichitei website, it was requisitioned by the Allied occupation after the war and later served as a foreign ambassador's residence and as a wedding venue, yet no major renovation was carried out. It reached the twenty-first century with its ornament and its interiors largely as built, which is precisely what made relocation a realistic option.
Architectural history found the house in the first place through the Architectural Detective survey that began in 1974, when it was still one more dwelling in a Tokyo residential district. Its finder, the architectural historian Fujimori Terunobu, became honorary director of Jinkichitei in 2022.
What to look for at Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House
The plan turns on a central hall, with doors opening from it to the dining room, the living room and the reception room. Each room takes a different manner, so the atmosphere changes as you pass through a doorway: the dining room styled like a mountain lodge, the main bedroom upstairs kept pale and Rococo.
In the dining room, look up. A deeply modelled relief covers the whole ceiling. In the reception room, look at the walls instead, where carved timber runs across the entire surface and the white shikkui plaster meets dark wood. The main bedroom was given the sunny side of the upper floor and a balcony of its own, which the house's account attributes to Yamamoto Setsuro's ideas about how a home should be lived in.
Look down as well. The entrance floor, the fireplaces, the bathrooms and parts of the exterior carry Taizan tiles, fired by the Taizan pottery of Kyoto. The pottery closed in 1973, so no more of them exist. During the move, about 11,400 tiles from the interior alone were lifted one by one and more than 90 percent were laid again. The mark on the reverse, the character for Taizan inside a triple frame, is how they are identified.
Kon Wajiro's contribution lives in the small things. Surviving sketches confirm his hand in the light fittings, the switch plates and the radiator grilles. He built very little in his lifetime, and a set of his work preserved together at this scale is rare. It has been suggested that details such as the reception room door handles are his as well, though that has not been settled.
The house remains in use as an office. Before a visit it helps to know that this is a building people walk in and out of, not an exhibit behind glass.
Visiting Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House
Openings are irregular. Maeda Corporation, which owns and manages Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House, runs them; admission is free, each session takes 25 people, and booking is compulsory and accepted only online through the official Jinkichitei website. A visit runs about 90 minutes, beginning with a film about the preservation and the move before anyone goes inside.
The most recent opening was held in August 2026, with the next expected around November of the same year, according to a Toride City notice updated on 30 July 2026. Dates are announced on both the Maeda Corporation pages and the city pages, so it is sensible to check both. Applications open a few weeks ahead of each session and close as soon as the places are filled.
Neither the Toride City notice nor the Maeda Corporation announcement says anything about photography, as checked on 8 September 2026. Follow the instructions sent with the booking confirmation and the briefing given on the day.
The address is 5270-8 Terada and adjoining lots, within the grounds of the Maeda Corporation ICI Center. This is the company's research campus, so there is no access on other days and no arrangement for viewing the exterior from outside the fence. The nearest station is Terahara on the Kanto Railway Joso Line, immediately outside the south exit. The Joso Line starts at Toride Station on the JR Joban Line, and Terahara is the first stop.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Ibaraki
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House
- [ Hitachi Seaside Park Nemophila Flower Tours ]
Q&A
- Can you visit Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House, and is booking required?
- Visits are possible only on the public opening days run by Maeda Corporation. Booking is compulsory and taken only through the online form on the official Jinkichitei website. The grounds are closed on all other days.
- Is there an admission charge for Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House?
- No. Admission is free. Each session is limited to 25 people and closes once those places are taken, and a visit lasts about 90 minutes.
- Where did Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House originally stand?
- In Shirokanedai, Minato ward, Tokyo. It was built there in 1934 as the private house of Watanabe Jinkichi, dismantled into its component parts in 2018, and rebuilt in March 2022 inside the Maeda Corporation ICI Center in Toride City.
- Who designed Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House?
- Three people worked on it. Yamamoto Setsuro, chief engineer of the house-building firm Amerika-ya, set the overall plan; Endo Kenzo of the Endo Architectural Office produced the working drawings; and Kon Wajiro designed the decorative detail.
- How do you get to Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House?
- It stands immediately outside the south exit of Terahara Station on the Kanto Railway Joso Line. That line begins at Toride Station on the JR Joban Line, and Terahara is one stop along.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House (旧渡辺甚吉邸主屋) |
|---|---|
| Location | 5270-8 Terada and adjoining lots, Toride City, Ibaraki Prefecture (within the Maeda Corporation ICI Center) |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (registration number 08-0318) |
| Year Designated | Registered on 27 February 2023 (Reiwa 5) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Floor area 225 square metres; timber-framed, 2 storeys, tiled roof |
| Owner | Maeda Corporation |
| Public Access | Irregular public openings only. Booking required, admission free, 25 places per session |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00014452
- Cultural Heritage Online: Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/587666
- Toride City: Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House, nationally registered cultural property
- https://www.city.toride.ibaraki.jp/maibun/bunkakatsudo/rekishi/shitebunkazai/jinkichitei.html
- Toride City: public openings of Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence Main House
- https://www.city.toride.ibaraki.jp/maibun/bunkakatsudo/rekishi/oshirase/jinkichi_koukai.html
- Jinkichitei official website (Maeda Corporation)
- https://jinkichitei.com/
- Maeda Corporation: the Former Watanabe Jinkichi Residence relocation project
- https://www.maeda.co.jp/works/report/genba/65/
Last verified: 2026.09.08