Horii Family Residence Detached Room

An Edo Guest Room Beside a Showa House

The Horii Family Residence Detached Room (堀井家住宅離れ) is a detached reception room of the late Edo period (1830 to 1867) in Anashi, Sakurai City, Nara Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on March 2, 2004 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a single-storey timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 35 square metres; registration number 29-0084.

A Reception Room off the Main House

The Horii Family Residence Detached Room is joined by a corridor to the north gable end of the main house (Agency for Cultural Affairs). It is a single-storey timber building with a hip-and-gable roof of pantiles, holding an 8-mat reception room and a 6-mat anteroom.

No building record is cited; the Agency dates it to the late Edo period on the evidence of its timbers and other parts. The main house it connects to went up in 1932, so this room was kept as the formal space when the rest of the home was renewed.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency registered it as a model of design, a fine example of a detached reception room in a restrained sukiya manner. Within the estate, only the main house and this room were registered under that criterion.

What to Look For

The 8-mat room has an alcove, display shelves and a built-in writing bay, and the battens of its ceiling are chamfered in the saruboo style (Agency for Cultural Affairs): both lower edges are cut back steeply, so from below each batten reads as a thin, light line.

Alcove, shelves and writing bay together make a formal room; the slender ceiling lines keep it from feeling stiff. That balance is what earns the description sukiya-style.

Visiting

The detached room lies inside the estate, north of the main house, and no official information on interior access was found. The details of the alcove and ceiling are known from the Agency's description.