Former Sugimoto Family Residence Detached Room

What the Former Sugimoto Family Residence Detached Room is

The Former Sugimoto Family Residence Detached Room (旧杉本家住宅離れ座敷, Kyū Sugimoto-ke Jūtaku Hanare-zashiki) is a reception wing built around 1893 in Hattaino, Hakusan-cho, Tsu City, Mie Prefecture, remodeled around 1935, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on November 17, 2015.

It is a single-storey timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 67 square meters. A connecting corridor links it to the west side of the main house, and it faces east. Mie Prefecture records that the Sugimoto family used it for tea gatherings and other social occasions.

Why the Sugimoto detached room was registered

The Former Sugimoto Family Residence Detached Room was registered as a building that contributes to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a reception wing of real refinement.

Here a farming household kept a separate building for guests, complete with a tea room and a preparation room. The main house already had a guest room and an altar room at its western end, and the family still added a wing of its own for visitors, a sign of the social standing of a village headman's household.

Eight mats, six mats, a tea room and a mizuya in one row

Inside the Former Sugimoto Family Residence Detached Room, four rooms run in a line from south to north: an eight-mat room, a six-mat room, a four-and-a-half-mat tea room and a three-mat Mizuya, the pantry where utensils are prepared for tea. According to the Agency, each room has formal alcove fittings, larger or smaller according to the room, so the rank of each space can be read from its alcove.

On the east side a corridor half a ken wide, about 0.9 meters, runs along the main garden. The rooms open onto the garden through it, so the main rooms face directly onto it.

The tea room, toward the north end, was arranged with the view of the north garden in mind. Two gardens, the main one to the east and a smaller one to the north, each serve a different kind of room, and that is the detail to look for in this wing.

Seeing the Former Sugimoto Family Residence Detached Room

The Former Sugimoto Family Residence Detached Room is privately owned, and no interior opening has been announced. The alcoves and tea room are indoors and cannot be seen from outside.

Because the wing stands west of the main house and faces inward onto the main garden, it is unlikely to be fully visible from beyond the property. Please stay off the grounds. Directions are on the Former Sugimoto Family Residence page.