Former Muto Villa, Kobe, Heritage house in Tarumi-ku, Japan

The Former Muto Villa is a residential house in Tarumi-ku built in Colonial Revival style, blending Japanese construction techniques with Western architectural features. The interior layout shows traditional Japanese room configurations alongside Western elements such as large windows and European materials.

The architect Yoshikuni Ōkuma designed this residence in 1907, during a period when Japan was integrating Western design principles into its domestic buildings. Its creation occurred at a time when the country's modernization was encouraging foreign influences across all areas of design.

The house shows how Japanese upper-class residents blended Eastern and Western living styles in their home layout and furnishings. You can see this fusion reflected in the way rooms are organized and decorated, revealing how open-minded the wealthy were to global influences at that time.

The villa is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last entry 30 minutes before closing. It is closed on Mondays, but if Monday is a public holiday it opens that day and closes on Tuesday instead. It is about a five-minute walk from JR Maiko Station, Sanyo Maiko-koen Station and the Maiko express bus stop.

The villa was moved twice: the Japanese wing and billiard room were demolished in 1995 for the widening of Route 2, and the Western building stood beside the Kitsunezuka burial mound in Kariguchidai before being rebuilt in Maiko Park in 2010. Its stained glass, windows, fireplaces and furniture survived because the house was already dismantled when the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake struck.