Yurinso Annex

What Is the Yurinso Annex?

The Yurinso Annex (有隣荘離れ, Yūrinsō Hanare) is a single-story wooden pavilion with a tea room, linked by a covered corridor to the west of the main house on the Yurinso estate in Kuniyasu, Tottori City, Tottori Prefecture; it dates from around 1923 and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2013.

At 60 square meters it is small, but it holds the most formal room on the estate, the hemlock-finished Tsuga Room, with an anteroom and a two-mat tea room to the south. It is said to have been granted to the Nishio family by the Ikeda, the lords of the Tottori domain.

Why the Yurinso Annex Was Registered

The Yurinso Annex was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, number 31-0175, together with the main house and seven other structures, for contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls it an annex of quiet composure. Tottori Prefecture's report singles out the arch-topped window in the hemlock room as a decorative flourish, and treats the way the main house and annex are set at overlapping angles in front of the pond-and-stroll garden as central to the estate's design. That arrangement is why, from the garden, the annex's low roof slides in front of the main house's larger one.

What to Look for at the Yurinso Annex

The Tsuga Room and its window

The main room of the Yurinso Annex is finished in fine hemlock (tsuga), a pale, close-grained wood. Beside the alcove, in the Tokowaki recess, is a Katōmado, a window whose head curves up into a flame-like peak. The shape came from Zen temples, and placed in a house it signals a room of high rank. The contrast between the even grain of the hemlock and the curving frame is the thing to look at.

Sources disagree on how to read the room's name. Tottori Prefecture gives Tsuga-no-ma; the restaurant gives Toga-no-ma. Both are readings of the same character for hemlock.

A two-mat tea room

South of the Tsuga Room is an anteroom and then a tiny Chashitsu tea room of two tatami mats with a strip of wooden floor between them, a layout the operator describes as two mats with a nakaita board and the alcove on the lower side. The board gives a sliver of breathing space in a very tight room. The operator says the Nishio family received this tea room from the Ikeda, that Ennōsai, thirteenth grand master of the Urasenke school of tea, visited often in the late Meiji period, and that his successor Tantansai came to a gathering here in 1946 with the young Hōunsai.

Two roof shapes

The Yurinso Annex runs north to south under a roof that combines Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable and Kirizuma-zukuri gable forms, laid with Sangawara-buki tiles, with a veranda around it. From the garden you can see the two kinds of gable end side by side, which gives a small building a surprisingly varied roofline.

Visiting the Yurinso Annex

The Yurinso Annex is part of the restaurant. The operator lists the tea room as viewing only, while the Tsuga Room appears among the dining rooms; since rooms cannot be requested, there is no guarantee of eating there. The Tea Time Plan, which includes a guided look around the building, is the most likely way to see the annex (checked October 2, 2026).

Its exterior is visible from the veranda of the main house and from the garden. No rule on photography is published, so ask your guide. Directions and booking conditions are on the Yurinso page.