Mizote Family Residence New Reception Wing

A Guest Pavilion in the Front Garden

Mizote Family Residence New Reception Wing (溝手家住宅新座敷, Mizote-ke Jūtaku Shin-zashiki) is a detached guest pavilion built in 1921 on a wealthy farming family's estate in Hayashima, Okayama Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2021.

It stands inside the gate, on the south side of the front garden, a single-storey timber building of 69 square metres. The family lived in the main house; this was where guests were received. The Japanese name, shin-zashiki, simply means the new reception rooms, as opposed to the older ones in the main house.

Why It Was Registered

The pavilion was registered under number 33-0338 for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs praises it as fine sukiya-style work that serves as a focal point in the front garden. Sukiya is the refined, tea-house-influenced manner of building that favours natural materials and understatement.

In an estate dominated by a thatched farmhouse and tiled storehouses, the Mizote Family Residence New Reception Wing adds a lighter Taishō-era note, and that contrast is part of what the registration recognises: an estate still being invested in well into the 20th century.

What to Look For

The entrance is on the north side. Just south of it lies a tea room of four and a half mats plus a daime mat, a shortened mat about three-quarters normal length on which the host prepares tea.

East of the tea room is an eight-mat reception room fitted with an alcove, shelves and a writing bay. A veranda floored with wide single boards of keyaki (Japanese zelkova) runs along its west and south sides. Boards that wide are where the quality of the carpentry shows most plainly.

A bath and toilet are attached on the east. Even there, the outer wall is clad in hishagi-dake, bamboo split and pressed flat, carrying the pavilion's sukiya vocabulary into its service rooms.

Visiting

The Mizote Family Residence New Reception Wing stands inside the compound and cannot be seen from the road. It is part of a private home and the interior is closed.

There is no way to see the tea room or the zelkova veranda from outside, so the Agency's description and the advisory report are the main record of the Mizote Family Residence New Reception Wing for visitors.