Sansuien Main Building

A Taisho Villa Grown into a Spa Inn

The Sansuien Main Building (山水園本館) is the main building of a hot spring inn of the early Taisho period in Midoricho, Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on April 25, 2014 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a timber building of two storeys, partly three, with a tiled roof and a building area of 1,340 square metres, altered in the early Showa period, in 1950 and in 1963; registration number 35-0086.

An Inn at Yuda Onsen

The Sansuien Main Building is a hot spring inn east of the Yuda Onsen district, a complex that grew from a Taisho-period villa through several rounds of extension (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Why It Was Registered

The Agency notes that the Taisho-period wing, planned together with the garden, is fine modern Japanese architecture, that later additions are sukiya work of excellent materials and craft, and that the tastes of different periods blend well; it was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape.

What to Look For

Look at how the Taisho wing and garden were planned as one, and how later sukiya additions blend with it (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Visiting

It is part of an inn owned by Sansuien Co., Ltd. (Agency for Cultural Affairs). No official information on stays or visits was found.