About the Yatagai Family Residence Annex
The Yatagai Family Residence Annex (矢田貝家住宅離れ, Yatagai-ke Jūtaku Hanare) is an early Shōwa-period wing joined to the south side of the Main House at the Yatagai Family Residence in Kamihosomi, Hōki Town, Tottori Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2011.
The Annex connects to the family altar room on the south side of the Main House. It is a single-story timber building of 8.9 m by 5.1 m, with a building area of 46 square meters and a hip-and-gable Irimoya-zukuri roof of pantiles. Inside are two rooms divided by a corridor: the Okunando, an inner room fitted with an alcove of a type the national database calls typical of this region, and a tea room of four and a half mats plus a three-quarter mat. A deep eave, a Tsuchibisashi, shelters the front of the tea room.
The name Annex was given for convenience at registration. According to Fujiki Tatsuya, the family never called the building that.
Why the Yatagai Annex was registered
The Yatagai Family Residence Annex was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to the pairing of the Okunando with an open, airy tea room across the corridor, and calls the whole an elegant building for receiving guests. Tottori Prefecture makes the same point.
The national database dates it to the early Shōwa period, but the diary of the fourth head of the family and old photographs show that the two rooms are of different dates. Fujiki explains that the Okunando replaced a toilet and bath that had stood south of the main bedroom of the Main House, and that it already appears in a photograph of the estate from the Taishō era. The tea room was planned from April 1931; the diary entry for May 29 records the decision to build a tea room beyond the Okunando, and on March 1, 1933, the hearth was lit for the first time, so the room was complete by then.
The fourth head prepared carefully for it, ordering a book on tea rooms and tea gardens and going to see a tea room in the neighboring district of Yoshinaga.
What to look for in the Yatagai Annex
Fujiki describes both rooms in detail. The Okunando is a six-mat room that served the head of the family as sitting room and study. Its veranda is finished in ultramarine and the room itself in yellow-tinted plaster. The alcove has a hanging partition rather than a raised floor, and beside it there is only a small upper cupboard: light, sukiya-style decoration.
The tea room has its alcove and its three-quarter mat side by side on the west. On the east, facing the front garden, are a small crawl-in guest entrance and a built-in writing desk, a Tsukeshoin; on the south, facing the tea garden, is a standing-height entrance for honored guests. Unusually for a tea room, it is entered from a veranda. Fujiki sees a basis in the taste of the tea master Kobori Enshū, departed from in several unconventional details, and reads the room as a strong expression of the fourth head's own preferences.
A veranda half a bay wide runs around all four sides, and the corridor between the two rooms is the same width. The whole building is four and a half bays by two and a half.
The diary also shows how the rooms were used. According to Tanaka Hiroo, the fourth head used this tea room mostly for drinking tea alone, and used the later Kanpū-an tea house when friends came. In Fujiki's analysis the Okunando was his own room through the early Shōwa years, where the diary has him drinking tea, reading the newspaper, listening to the radio and playing go.
Visiting the Yatagai Family Residence Annex
The Yatagai Family Residence Annex is privately owned, and its interior is not open. It stands south of the Main House, inside the Garden Gate, and cannot be seen from National Route 181. We found no notice that visitors can enter it even on days when the house is open, and no photography policy is published. Directions and visiting conditions for the estate are on the Yatagai Family Residence page.
Q&A
- What rooms are in the Yatagai Family Residence Annex?
- Two: the Okunando, a six-mat room the head of the family used as sitting room and study, and a tea room of four and a half mats plus a three-quarter mat, with a corridor between them.
- When was the Yatagai Family Residence Annex built?
- The national database gives the early Shōwa period. Research on the family diary shows that the Okunando already existed in the Taishō era, and that the tea room was planned in 1931 and finished by March 1933.
- What is special about the tea room in the Yatagai Annex?
- It has a crawl-in entrance and a built-in desk on the east and a standing-height entrance on the south, and it is entered from a veranda, which is unusual. It draws on the taste of Kobori Enshū but breaks with convention in several details.
- Why is the Yatagai Family Residence Annex a Registered Tangible Cultural Property?
- It was registered on July 25, 2011, for its contribution to the historic landscape. It is valued as an elegant building for receiving guests, joining an inner room and an open tea room by a corridor.
- Can I visit the Yatagai Annex?
- It is privately owned, the interior is not open, and it cannot be seen from the road. Ask the Hōki Town Board of Education lifelong learning office before visiting.
Basic Information
| Name | Yatagai Family Residence Annex |
|---|---|
| Location | 486 Kamihosomi and other lots, Hōki Town, Saihaku District, Tottori Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Building) |
| Year Designated | Registered July 25, 2011 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | 8.9 m × 5.1 m in plan; building area 46 m² |
| Owner | Private (no owner named in the national database) |
| Public Access | Interior not open |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Yatagai Family Residence Annex
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00008755
- Cultural Heritage Online: Yatagai Family Residence Annex
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/224706
- Tottori Bunkazai Navi (Tottori Prefecture Cultural Properties Division): Yatagai Family Residence
- https://db.pref.tottori.jp/bunkazainavi.nsf/bunkazai_web_view/117213810028FEE749257C5A00296E73
- Fujiki Tatsuya, "The Yatagai Family Residence as Revealed Through Kaso Diagrams and Diaries," Studies of San'in Region Extra Issue 2 (Shimane University, 2026)
- https://ir.lib.shimane-u.ac.jp/55741
- Tanaka Hiroo, "A Modern Village Landlord's Garden-Making Record," Studies of San'in Region Extra Issue 2 (Shimane University, 2026)
- https://ir.lib.shimane-u.ac.jp/55742
Last verified: 2026.10.07
