Former Nagayama Takeshirō Residence, Historic house in Chuo-ku, Sapporo, Japan.
The Former Nagayama Takeshirō Residence is a single-storey wooden house built in the first half of the 1870s, with a total area of 136.06 square metres. Its southern shoin-zashiki (formal tatami room) connects directly to a Western-style reception room in the northern section, creating a Japanese-Western eclectic layout. A wooden club building with a green roof, added around 1937, is joined to the house. The exterior has corner posts and weatherboard siding, and the entrance gable bears a cross-shaped ornament.
Built in the first half of the 1870s for Nagayama Takeshirō, a Hokkaido Development Commission official who later served as Hokkaido governor and commander of the 7th Division. The site on North 3-jo Street then stood among the settler headquarters, industrial workshops, and wine and beer plants at the centre of Hokkaido's development. Mitsubishi bought the house in August 1911 and used it for Hokkaido business and coal-mine surveys; in April 1913 the company gave about 313 tsubo of land to Sapporo for a road, and around 1937 Mitsubishi Mining added the wooden club wing.
The house shows how Meiji-era elite homes combined Japanese and Western rooms. The shoin-zashiki, a formal Japanese reception room, connects directly to a Western-style drawing room whose plasterwork centres on a maple motif, a design also found at Toyohirakan and Seikatei. Ceiling boards of Hokkaido timber span the eight-mat area between the two rooms, fitted with Western-style sliding doors.
The house is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. and admission is free. It closes over the New Year holidays and on the second Wednesday of each month. The building stands in a park beside Sapporo Factory, facing Kitakujo-dori, the road leading to the former Hokkaido Government Office.
The 1887 map "Sapporo Han'ei Zuroku" shows the residence once enclosed by a wall, with two wooden bridges crossing from North 3-jo Street, and flat-roofed buildings attached to its east and north sides that no longer survive.
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