Hara Family Residence Tea Room

Two Tea Rooms Under Two Roofs

Hara Family Residence Tea Room (原家住宅茶室, Hara-ke Jūtaku Chashitsu) is a Chashitsu built in 1906 in Nihongi, Konan Ward, Niigata City, moved within the same grounds in 1976, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 1 August 2016. It is a single-storey timber building with copper roofing and a building area of 46 square metres.

Two rooms of different sizes are joined here, one of three tatami mats and one of four and a half, each under its own copper-clad gabled roof. The pair of roofs tells you the plan before you know anything else about the building.

A Moved Building, Still Valued

When it was new, the Hara Family Residence Tea Room was attached to the north side of the Buddhist altar room wing, so the tea rooms lay deep inside the house, beyond the family altar.

In 1976 it was detached and rebuilt on a raised mound elsewhere in the grounds. Registration came some forty years after that move, which means it is the relocated building, in its present setting, that was recognised as part of the compound's landscape.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs praises the refined finish and the amount of fine timber used, especially around the alcove. In a timber merchant's tea room, that is where the effort went.

What to Look For

Outside, look for the Tsuchibisashi, a deep eave over an earth-floored strip. It wraps three sides of the four-and-a-half-mat room, leaving only the north face bare, and it rests on round posts rather than squared ones, which softens the whole edge of the building.

Standing alone on its mound, the Hara Family Residence Tea Room can now be seen in the round, something that was impossible when it was part of the house. The difference in size between the two gables mirrors the difference between the two rooms.

Indoors, the alcove is where the best wood is concentrated.

Viewing the Tea Room

The tea room is closed to the public, and we found no tea gatherings or other events at which it is opened.

Published sources do not give its exact position on the mound, so we have not been able to confirm how much of it can be seen from outside. The grounds cannot be entered.