The Middle Building of Three
Kadoya Ryokan Annex (加登屋旅館別館, Kadoya Ryokan Bekkan) is a three-storey timber inn building at Shiozawa, Itamuro, Nasushiobara City, Tochigi Prefecture, dated by the Agency for Cultural Affairs to around 1937 and registered as a Tangible Cultural Property on 25 February 2016.
It does not stand alone, and it was never meant to be read alone. The annex is wedged between two other registered buildings of the same inn: the Main Building of 1919 on one side, Yūsenkaku of 1952 on the other. All three were registered on the same day. Walk up the road at Itamuro Onsen and you meet them as a single timber wall three buildings wide, each floor line slightly out of step with its neighbour.
The annex measures 4.545 metres across the front and 7.272 metres deep, which in the traditional module works out at two and a half ken by four. Its roof is hipped and clad in teppan kawarabō-buki, sheet metal laid with raised battens running down the slope. The building covers just 33 square metres of ground and rises three floors on that footprint.
In 1973 the annex was joined internally to the buildings on either side and the three began operating as one. Since then it has had no entrance of its own. You reach it through a corridor.
Western Details in a Hot-Spring Inn
The interior is plain by the standards of a resort inn. Rooms are Japanese-style, floored in tatami, with the built-in ornamental fittings called zashiki-kazari that mark a room as formal: an alcove, staggered shelves, a decorative post. Nothing lavish.
The outside tells a different story. Sections of wall were finished in the rough, pitted stucco known in Japan as German plaster, and the flanks carry double-hung sash windows, an unmistakably Western fitting in a building otherwise built by Japanese carpenters for Japanese guests. This mixing was fashionable through the late Taishō and early Shōwa years, and the annex adopted it while its neighbours stayed conventional.
Most of that evidence now survives on the top floor, which has been left out of use and retains its earlier configuration. A ten-mat room there is ringed on three sides by corridors, west, north and east; the trace of a staircase remains in the wide veranda floor on the west side. Some original sash windows are still in place, paint survives on window frames, and a patch of German plaster clings to the outer wall above the bay window on the east.
Two small pieces of carpentry are worth knowing about before you go, because they are the kind of thing that gets missed. In the staggered shelves of the top-floor guest room sits an ebizuka, the short strut linking the upper and lower shelf boards, cut here to an unusual profile. At a corner of the corridor, the saobuchi ceiling, whose exposed battens are grouped in tight clusters rather than spaced evenly, turns the corner with the boards fanned rather than mitred.
The building was registered under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country. Nasushiobara City's own account is direct about why: a fire in 1978 destroyed much of Itamuro's stock of wooden inns, and Kadoya came through it. What survives is not one exceptional building but a continuous run of three, spanning Taishō, early Shōwa and the postwar years, standing in the order they were built.
Itamuro Onsen, and How to See the Annex
Itamuro Onsen sits in a narrow valley on the Yu River, a tributary of the Naka, at the far inland end of Nasushiobara City. Local tradition places its discovery in 1059. The water is an alkaline simple spring, long prescribed for neuralgia and rheumatism and known historically as the medicinal bath of Shimotsuke, and the settlement is designated a National Health Resort Hot Spring. Kadoya stands at the deepest point of the village, where the road runs out.
Visiting requires some care. The annex has no street entrance and no separate viewing arrangement, and the three historic buildings have been used less and less for overnight stays in recent years. The inn also markets a newer concrete building under the name annex, which is a different structure from the registered one. Anyone hoping to see or stay in the 1937 building should contact Kadoya Ryokan directly and ask about the registered buildings by name. Do not assume that a booking labelled annex will put you in this one.
What is always available is the street view. From the road you can take in all three buildings at once, which is the point of the registration, and photographing them from the public road is unrestricted. Please do not enter the grounds or photograph guests.
Getting there from Tokyo takes about two and a half hours. The Tōhoku Shinkansen reaches Nasushiobara in roughly seventy minutes; a local train covers the five minutes on to Kuroiso; buses run from Kuroiso to Itamuro Onsen in about thirty-five minutes, and some services start from the west exit of Nasushiobara Station. By car, the Kuroiso-Itamuro interchange on the Tōhoku Expressway is about twenty minutes away. Bus frequency in the valley is low, so check timetables before setting out rather than after arriving.
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Q&A
- Can you stay in or visit the Kadoya Ryokan Annex?
- The registered annex has no entrance of its own and is reached only through the neighbouring buildings, and use of the three historic buildings for overnight guests has been reduced in recent years. Contact Kadoya Ryokan directly and ask specifically about the registered buildings, since the inn also uses the word annex for a separate modern building.
- When was the Kadoya Ryokan Annex built and when was it registered?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to around 1937, with alterations in 1973. Nasushiobara City describes it more broadly as late Taishō to early Shōwa. It was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property on 25 February 2016 under registration number 09-0222, together with the Main Building and Yūsenkaku.
- What Western features does the Kadoya Ryokan Annex have?
- Parts of the exterior wall were finished in rough German plaster, and double-hung sash windows were fitted on the flanks. Traces of both survive on the disused top floor, along with paint on the window frames, in a building that is otherwise laid out as conventional Japanese tatami rooms.
- How do I reach Itamuro Onsen and the Kadoya Ryokan Annex from Tokyo?
- Take the Tōhoku Shinkansen to Nasushiobara, around seventy minutes, then a local train five minutes to Kuroiso and a bus roughly thirty-five minutes to Itamuro Onsen. Some buses depart from the west exit of Nasushiobara Station. Services are infrequent, so check timetables in advance.
- Why is the Kadoya Ryokan Annex considered significant?
- It was registered under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape. A fire in 1978 destroyed many of Itamuro's wooden inns, and Kadoya's three buildings survived as an unbroken sequence from 1919, around 1937 and 1952, preserving the character of the old therapeutic bathing village.
Basic Information
| Name | Kadoya Ryokan Annex (加登屋旅館別館, Kadoya Ryokan Bekkan) |
|---|---|
| Location | 854 and adjacent, Shiozawa, Itamuro, Nasushiobara City, Tochigi Prefecture (Nasushiobara City gives the inn's address as 859) |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure); registration number 09-0222; criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country |
| Year Designated | Registered and gazetted 25 February 2016 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Timber, three storeys, sheet-metal roof; building area 33 square metres; frontage 4.545 m, depth 7.272 m |
| Owner | Private individual |
| Public Access | No independent entrance; exterior viewing from the public road. Contact the inn regarding access to the registered buildings |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database — Kadoya Ryokan Annex
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00010915
- Cultural Heritage Online — Kadoya Ryokan Annex
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/284116
- Cultural Heritage Online — Kadoya Ryokan Main Building
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/254505
- Nasushiobara City, Lifelong Learning Division — Kadoya Ryokan
- https://www.city.nasushiobara.tochigi.jp/soshikikarasagasu/shogaigakushuka/bunkazai/2/6/2615.html
- Nasushiobara City — Transport Access
- https://www.city.nasushiobara.tochigi.jp/soshikikarasagasu/shoko/shinoprofile/2767.html
Last verified: 2026.08.24