The Room Where Deals Are Still Made
Okujun Hanare (奥順離れ, the Okujun Detached Room) is a single-storey timber annexe in the Omachi district of Yuki City, Ibaraki Prefecture, built in 1886 and registered as a Tangible Cultural Property on 9 February 2005.
A hanare is a building set apart from the main house within the same compound, usually for guests, for retired members of the family, or for the kind of business that should not be conducted across a shop counter. This one stands north of and parallel to the Okujun shop building, three and a half ken along the ridge by three ken deep, with a hipped roof of sangawara pantiles and a tiled eaves canopy running around all four sides. Building area is 60 square metres.
Inside, the plan is arranged around a formal north room. That room is eight tatami mats and carries the full set of built-in fittings: toko, the display alcove; tana, the staggered shelving beside it; and shoin, the writing bay projecting toward the garden. South of it are rooms of six and three mats. Beneath the surrounding canopy runs a en, a perimeter veranda, closed in with glazed shoji screens.
Why the Wholesaler Built Formally
The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls the detached room one of the principal components of the residential compound, and Yuki City describes it as a full-scale example of Japanese-style architecture, built in the same year as the Okujun Misegura. Both statements point at the same thing: this is not an outbuilding. It received the level of finish normally reserved for a main reception hall.
The reason lies in how the silk trade worked. A producing-region wholesaler dealt in cloth of extremely high value, negotiated between houses that had known each other for generations, and settled terms in conversation rather than on paper. Those conversations needed a room with a proper alcove, a garden to look at, and enough distance from the shop that they could not be overheard. Okujun states that the detached room is still used today for negotiations between wholesalers, which means the building has held the same social function for close to a hundred and forty years.
The room reached a national audience once. Okujun records that the zashiki facing the inner garden appeared as a setting in Hatoko no Umi, the NHK morning serial drama broadcast in 1974, part of which was set in Yuki. The exposure came at a useful moment for the local silk trade, and the detached room is one of the few registered buildings in the district with a broadcast history attached to it.
Registration number 08-0162 places it between the shop building and the storehouse in the sequence registered together in the 45th round, under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the nation.
How to Read a Formal Zashiki
The three fittings of the north room each carry meaning. The toko alcove sets the ranking of the room and fixes where the honoured guest sits, with their back to it. The tana shelving beside it displays incense containers and writing implements. The shoin bay, a low desk built out beneath a window, descends from the study alcoves of medieval temple quarters and by the Edo period had become a mark of formality rather than a place anyone actually wrote.
The hipped roof deserves notice too. A yosemune hipped roof sheds water on all four sides and reads as calmer and lower than the gabled roofs of the shop buildings on the street. Combined with the tiled canopy running all the way round, it gives the building a horizontal, settled profile appropriate to a garden setting.
The glazed screens along the veranda are a later technology than the frame that holds them. Sheet glass in domestic use spread through Japan from the late Meiji period onward, and fitting it into shoji frames let a room keep its winter warmth while retaining a view of the garden. Buildings of this generation often show exactly this layering: an 1880s timber frame carrying early twentieth-century glazing.
Visitors should plan around one constraint. The detached room is not open to the public. Okujun asks that people refrain from entering it, along with the shop building and the storehouse, since all three remain in daily commercial use. What is open is the rest of the compound, run as Tsumugi no Yakata at Yuki 12-2: a display hall holding more than two hundred bolts of Yuki-tsumugi in a relocated farmhouse around 150 years old, an archive room, a shop and a dyeing and weaving workshop. Admission is free, with charges for the archive room and the hands-on sessions. Hours are 10:00 to 16:00 on weekdays and 10:00 to 17:00 at weekends and public holidays, last entry thirty minutes before closing, closed Tuesdays, Wednesdays and over the New Year. The site is about ten minutes on foot from the north exit of Yuki Station on the JR Mito Line, with twenty free parking spaces.
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Q&A
- Can visitors see inside the Okujun Detached Room?
- No. Okujun asks that visitors refrain from entering the detached room, the shop building and the storehouse, as all three are still in commercial use. The display hall, archive room, shop and workshop of Tsumugi no Yakata in the same compound are open to the public.
- When was the Okujun Detached Room built?
- In 1886, the 19th year of Meiji, the same year as the Okujun Misegura. It was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property on 9 February 2005, gazetted on 28 February that year, under registration number 08-0162.
- What is the Okujun Detached Room used for now?
- Okujun states that the room is still used for negotiations between wholesalers. It has therefore kept the reception and dealing function it was built for, which is unusual among registered buildings of its age.
- Was the Okujun Detached Room used as a filming location?
- Yes. Okujun records that the zashiki facing the inner garden served as a setting for Hatoko no Umi, the NHK morning serial drama broadcast in 1974, part of which was set in Yuki.
- What can I actually visit at the Okujun compound in Yuki?
- Tsumugi no Yakata at Yuki 12-2 is open free of charge, 10:00 to 16:00 on weekdays and 10:00 to 17:00 at weekends and public holidays, closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays and over the New Year. It includes a display hall with over two hundred bolts of cloth, an archive room and dyeing and weaving experiences, the latter two charged separately. It is around ten minutes on foot from Yuki Station.
Basic Information
| Name | Okujun Hanare, the Okujun Detached Room (奥順離れ) |
|---|---|
| Location | 9-2 and 12-2 Omachi, Oaza Yuki, Yuki City, Ibaraki Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration number 08-0162 |
| Year Designated | Registered 9 February 2005, gazetted 28 February 2005 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Single-storey timber frame, hipped pantile roof, building area 60 m². Three and a half ken by three ken |
| Owner | Okujun Co., Ltd. (no owner name published in the Agency's database) |
| Public Access | Not open to the public. Entry to the building is not permitted |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database - Okujun Hanare
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004502
- Yuki City - Registered Tangible Cultural Properties: Okujun Co., Ltd.
- https://www.city.yuki.lg.jp/kosodate-kyouiku/shougaigakushuu/bunkazai/bunkazai/tourokuyuukei/page003228.html
- Tsumugi no Yakata - Detached Room
- https://www.yukitumugi.co.jp/guide/detached-room/
- Tsumugi no Yakata - Facility guide
- https://www.yukitumugi.co.jp/guide/
- Tsumugi no Yakata - Access and opening hours
- https://www.yukitumugi.co.jp/access/
Last verified: 2026.08.04