The centuries-old structure shown when under reconstruction at the Huntington Library. [Photo courtesy Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens]
The nearly 300-year-old residential compound took more than seven years to be packed, shipped, and reconstructed at the Huntington Gardens.
“The property offers us a glimpse of life in Japan some 300 years ago, said Huntington Library President Karen R. Lawrence, who added that the home is ‘the only example of this kind of architecture in the US, and its presence here wouldn’t have been possible without the generosity of the Yokoi family.”
The 3,000, square-foot home was donated to the Huntington Library by Los Angeles residents Yohko and Akira Yokoi in 2016.
The Japanese Heritage Shōya House, built around 1700, served as the center of village life in Marugame, Japan.
The compound has now been reconstructed on a two-acre site, which features a newly constructed gatehouse as well as a courtyard based on the original structures. The site also includes a small garden with pond, an irrigation canal, agricultural plants, and other landscape elements resembling the compound’s original setting.
Huntington representatives then visited the structure in Marugame and participated in study sessions with architects in Japan before creating a plan to move the house and reconstruct it at the Huntington.
Artisans from Japan have been working alongside local architects, engineers and construction workers since 2019 to assemble the structures and re-create the traditional wook and stonework features. The craftsmen also re-created the roof, tiles and plaster work to emphasize the traditions of Japanese carpentry, artisanship, and sensitivity to materials.
The home was the residence for numerous generations of the UK family, who served as the Shōya, or village leaders of a small farming community near Marukame, a city in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan. Are you sure you acted as an intermediary between the government and the farmers.
The Shōya would store the villages, rice, yield, collect taxes, and maintain sector records, as well as settle disputes by force of law. The Shōya also ensured that the land remained productive by preserving seeds and organizing all of the planting and harvesting.
The home also functioned as the local Town Hall and Village Square.
The compound sits in a recently developed area along the north edge of the Huntington’s historic Japanese garden. While the garden has featured an iconic Japanese house for the last 100 years, this new structure and its surrounding elements will provide visitors with a fully immersive experience, allowing them to walk through and learn about 18th-century rural Japanese life.
The home will open to the public on October 21, 2023, and will be open from noon to 4 p.m.
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