Former Uchiyama Family Residence Tea Room (Sannyuan)

About the Former Uchiyama Family Residence Tea Room Sannyūan

The Former Uchiyama Family Residence Tea Room Sannyūan (旧内山家住宅茶室三入庵, Kyū-Uchiyama-ke Jūtaku Chashitsu Sannyūan) is a single-storey wooden tea house built in 1927 at 903 Miyao, Toyama City, Toyama Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 1998.

This Former Uchiyama Family Residence Tea Room stands south of the main house, near the southern edge of the estate, with a building area of 20 m². The Toyama Cultural Foundation describes it as a full-scale tea room of four and a half mats in the standard hongatte arrangement, with a covered waiting bench for guests.

Built Under a Tea Master's Guidance

The Sannyūan is the only one of the 14 Uchiyama structures registered as a model of form. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the Former Uchiyama Family Residence Tea Room as a soundly composed design.

It is said to have been built under the guidance of the head of the Yabunouchi school of tea, with a master carpenter brought from Kyoto. For a household whose twelfth head, Gaisen, loved Chinese poetry and tea, the tea ceremony was plainly at the centre of family life and hospitality.

Moved Away and Brought Home

The Former Uchiyama Family Residence Tea Room Sannyūan once left the estate. The Agency records that it was moved elsewhere in 1941; the Foundation names the new owner as the Yoneda family of Higashi-Iwase in Toyama City.

In 1981 the tea room came back to the Uchiyama estate, and the Foundation says it was rebuilt in March of that year. After 40 years in another household, it now stands again in its original garden.

The feature the Agency singles out is the ceiling of the mizuya, the preparation room behind the scenes, which is boarded in a boat-bottom shape, higher along the centre.

Seeing the Former Uchiyama Family Residence Tea Room Sannyūan

The Sannyūan sits towards the south of the garden and is part of the view from the main house's reception rooms. As you walk round this Former Uchiyama Family Residence Tea Room, picture guests moving from the waiting bench to the tea room.

Whether the interior can be entered could not be confirmed from official sources; the room is sometimes used for tea gatherings, so ask at the reception. Opening days and admission are on the Former Uchiyama Family Residence (Toyama) page. No official guidance on photography could be found as of September 2026, so ask at the reception.