Former Yunoki Family Residence (Saisotei)

A Village Headman's House Built to Receive a Lord

The Former Yunoki Family Residence (Saisotei) (旧柚木家住宅（西爽亭）, Kyū Yunoki-ke Jūtaku, Saisōtei) is a mid-Edo-period estate in Tamashima, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture, whose main house, Onarimon Gate and tea room, all dated to the Tenmei era (1781 to 1788), were listed as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan on 18 October 2000. The family name is read Yunoki and the house name Saisōtei, not "Yuzuki" or "Nishisotei" as they are sometimes romanized. Kurashiki City owns the property and opens the Saisotei section free of charge.

The Yunoki family served as Shōya, or village headmen, in Tamashima under the Bitchū Matsuyama domain, which was ruled from present-day Takahashi. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes them as senior headmen who were granted the standing of a domain magistrate. Tamashima grew rich on coastal shipping during the Edo period, and the family built on sloping ground at the foot of the hills southeast of the harbor.

The domain lord is said to have stopped here when touring his territory. That is why the street gate is called the onarimon, the gate for a lord's visit, and why a commoner's house has a formal entrance hall fit to receive him. Kurashiki City notes that such a samurai-style layout is unusual in Tamashima.

The name Saisotei, roughly "pavilion of the refreshing west," is said to have been chosen by Kan Chazan, a Confucian scholar from Kannabe in neighboring Bingo Province (now part of Fukuyama, Hiroshima).

Three Buildings, Three Different Criteria

The registered structures of the Former Yunoki Family Residence carry consecutive numbers: the main house is 33-0048, the Onarimon Gate 33-0049 and the tea room 33-0050. Each was listed under a different criterion of the Registered Tangible Cultural Property system.

• The main house qualifies as a model of form, for its formal sequence of rooms running back from a ceremonial entrance.
• The Onarimon Gate qualifies for its contribution to the historic landscape; it is among the largest gates of any farmhouse or townhouse surviving in the old Bitchū region.
• The tea room qualifies as something not easily reproduced, since it pairs a small daime-mat tea room with a sencha room cantilevered over the garden slope.

The system has only three criteria, and this one estate uses all of them, one per building. The gate answers to the street, the reception wing to formality, and the tea room to craft.

One point of naming is easy to miss. The building registered as the "main house" is the reception wing with the entrance hall, study rooms and bath, and it is the building Kurashiki City presents to visitors as Saisotei. The family's former living quarters were converted into a municipal lifelong-learning center and are not part of the registration.

Walking Through Saisotei

The standing of the Former Yunoki Family Residence (Saisotei) shows in two places: the Onarimon Gate on the street and the Shikidai entrance hall of the reception wing. From the entrance hall the rooms run back in order: the toritsugi-no-ma, where a visitor was announced, then the tsugi-no-ma and the kami-no-ma, the room of honor. Beyond them are the bath and toilets, kept in the arrangement used when guests of rank stayed the night.

The reception rooms look out on the garden. Kurashiki City credits its generous stonework, together with the buildings, for keeping the character of the 1780s. The tea room stands in the southern corner of the grounds, with its sencha room pushed out over the slope of the garden.

The converted living quarters hold meeting rooms and tatami rooms that can be rented for a fee. The Saisotei rooms themselves cannot be booked for gatherings and are open for viewing only.

1868: The Death of Kumata Ataka

Locally, the Yunoki house is remembered above all for an event at the end of the shogunate. In 1868, Kumata Ataka (1825 to 1868), a Matsuyama domain retainer who had commanded Lord Itakura Katsukiyo's guard in Osaka during the Battle of Toba-Fushimi, was ordered home and landed at Tamashima by sea with his men.

By then the domain was under attack by forces of the new Meiji government, and it refused to readmit him. According to Kurashiki City, Kumata petitioned for the lives of the more than 150 men with him and then took his own life in the tsugi-no-ma of Saisotei. The episode is still told in Tamashima as the reason the town was spared from fighting.

Kurashiki's official tourism site adds a lighter story. Niijima Jō, who later founded Doshisha, stopped at Tamashima harbor at about 19 and bathed at the Yunoki house, an event he recorded in his own account of his life.

Hours, Admission and Getting There

The Former Yunoki Family Residence is open 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. It closes on Mondays (when Monday is a public holiday it opens, and closes on the next day that is not a holiday) and over the New Year period, 28 December to 4 January. Entry to the Saisotei section is free. The phone number is 086-522-0151. Official information says nothing about photography, so ask at reception.

By public transport, start at Shin-Kurashiki Station on the JR San'yō Line and San'yō Shinkansen. Kurashiki City gives the route as a bus toward Tamashima-chūōchō, about 10 minutes, then a 10-minute walk from the Tamashima-chūōchō stop. Okayama Prefecture's tourism site also lists the Yorishima Line bus, about 10 minutes to the Tamashō Ground-mae stop, followed by a walk of about 5 minutes.

By car, allow about 15 minutes from Tamashima Interchange on the San'yō Expressway. A free parking lot for 7 cars adjoins the property on the west side.