Kyochaan Hualien Store (former Ansei Family Residence Main

Kyochaan Hanare Shop (Former Anjo Family Residence Main Building): A Taisho-Era Hybrid Gem in Kanuma's Hidden Alley

Step into Nekoya Roji, a narrow alley just northeast of Kanuma City Hall in Tochigi Prefecture, and you will find yourself in one of the most quietly magnetic corners of rural Japan. Cafes, bakeries, and small shops occupy former residences along this short backstreet, each one carefully nurtured over two decades from what had been an almost forgotten lane. Among them stands a modest single-story house built in 1916, its hipped roof low and unassuming, its walls whispering of an era when Japan was enthusiastically absorbing Western ideas while holding tight to its own traditions. This is the former main building of the Anjo family residence—today known as the Kyochaan Hanare Shop—registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in March 2024.

A Quiet Witness to the Taisho Era

The Anjo family built this home in the fifth year of the Taisho era (1916), a period when Japan's cultural landscape was being reshaped by an openness to Western design, engineering, and daily life. Middle-class families across the country were beginning to imagine homes that could accommodate both tatami rooms for family life and Western-style parlors for receiving guests, and this small residence captures that aspiration on a human scale.

The building underwent an extension in 1962 and a careful renovation in 2020, yet the essential character of the original structure has been preserved with remarkable fidelity. At only 76 square meters of floor area, it is not a grand mansion, but precisely that intimacy is what makes it such a compelling example of early twentieth-century domestic architecture.

Why It Was Recognized as a Cultural Property

The property was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property (Building) on March 6, 2024, in recognition of its contribution to the historical landscape of the nation. The building is valued for three interwoven qualities: its thoughtful hybrid of Japanese and Western design, the exceptional plasterwork on its Western-style exterior, and its role in anchoring the historical character of the Kanuma town center.

What makes this registration particularly meaningful is that the structure is not merely a surviving artifact but a living piece of architecture that continues to shape the atmosphere of the alley around it. Registered cultural properties of this kind are selected because their quiet, everyday presence helps preserve a sense of place that cannot be recreated once lost.

Architectural Highlights

A House of Two Faces

The building sits at the center of its plot, facing east, with a hipped roof clad in the distinctive Japanese "kawarabo" style of zinc-sheet roofing—thin sheets with raised ridges that mimic the rhythmic lines of traditional tile. A small gabled entrance porch projects from the front, subtly announcing the transition between outside and inside.

Crossing the threshold of that porch, a visitor would historically have been met by an internal boundary as meaningful as the front door itself. The southern half of the house is designed in refined Japanese style, featuring shin-kabe (exposed-post) wall construction and a proper zashiki reception room with a tokonoma alcove. A carefully crafted wooden veranda known as kureen runs along the exterior, now partially concealed behind later aluminum sashes but still intact beneath them.

The Western Half and Its Remarkable Mortar Work

The northern half of the house tells a very different story. Here, a Western-style room sits behind exterior walls finished in ō-kabe (wall-clad) construction, with the mortar surface treated in a technique called araidashi, or "washed-out finish." In this technique, aggregate stones are embedded in the mortar while it is still wet, and the surface is then washed to reveal the stones. Joints are cut into the mortar to imitate coursed stonework, giving the humble plastered wall the visual weight of masonry.

What is truly extraordinary is the craftsmanship underlying this finish. The plasterer used different varieties of aggregate stone for the main wall surface and for the base and window surrounds, a subtle distinction that required considerable skill and planning. Even more impressive: after more than a century of Japanese summers, winters, and earthquakes, the surface shows almost no cracking. This durability is now recognized as a testament to the exceptional standard of left-handed plastering craft (sakan) achieved in the early Taisho era.

The Nekoya Roji Setting

The building cannot be understood apart from its setting. Nekoya Roji, the alley in which it stands, traces its modern life back to 1999, when a local man named Kyoji Kazama converted his own home into a cafe called Kyochaan—a name that would later lend itself to this registered building as well. From that single cafe, the alley gradually attracted like-minded small businesses: a bakery-coffee shop, a vegetable-forward French restaurant, artisan stores, and seasonal events.

Today the area is widely regarded as the birthplace of Kanuma's cafe culture and draws visitors from across the country. The registered former Anjo residence stands slightly deeper into the alley, its sober exterior a quiet counterpoint to the lively comings and goings of cafegoers nearby.

Visitor Information and Etiquette

The former Anjo residence is a privately owned building that is not generally open to the public for interior tours. Visitors are warmly encouraged to view and photograph the exterior from the alley, which is a public lane, and to enjoy the many cafes and shops clustered around it. Please refrain from entering the grounds or looking into the windows, and keep voices gentle—this remains a residential and commercial neighborhood.

For the most atmospheric experience, plan your visit for the first Sunday of the month, when the Nekoyado Shotengai market brings together food stalls, craft vendors, and live music in Nekoya Roji and the nearby Tenjin Nagaya lane. Even outside market days, a leisurely weekday walk allows unhurried appreciation of the buildings, signboards, and small details that give the alley its character.

Getting There

The building stands in central Kanuma, just a short walk from Kanuma City Hall. The most convenient access is via Shin-Kanuma Station on the Tobu Nikko Line, about a 15-minute walk away; JR Kanuma Station is slightly further and typically reached by taxi or local bus. Drivers coming from the Tohoku Expressway can reach the area in approximately 20 minutes from the Kanuma Interchange. A free public parking lot serves the Nekoya Roji area.

Things to Do Nearby

A short walk from the alley brings visitors to Kanuma Imamiya Shrine, the spiritual heart of the city and the stage for one of Japan's most celebrated festival traditions. The Kanuma Imamiya Shrine Festival Float Event, held every October, features more than twenty lavishly carved wooden floats and is inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Within the immediate vicinity of the former Anjo residence, visitors can enjoy a cup of carefully prepared pour-over coffee at Nikko Coffee Kyochaan Main Store, browse handmade crafts in the neighborhood shops, or simply wander between the former castle town's lanes to sense how a provincial post town along the old Nikko road has been gently reinvented for the twenty-first century.