By MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS, Rafu Travel & Leisure
SAN MARINO — There is a singular peace that is built into a traditional Japanese house, a feeling that can only be felt by having the experience in person.
Now, thanks to a monumental donation by Los Angeles residents Akira and Yohko Yokoi, a stunning 3,000-square-foot home built around 1700 is as close as the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino.
The compound was home to the local shoya, a village administrator, and also served as a community center, where meetings between samurai and farmers were held, disputes were adjudicated, census records kept and local taxes collected. The Yokoi family lived in the house through the vast changes in Japanese governmental history and into the modern era, some 300 years.
Akira Yokoi spent his grammar and middle school years living in the house, in the town of Marugame on the southern Japanese island of Shikoku. He is a 19th-generation member of the family that originally had the residential compound constructed. After the passing of his grandmother, the house sat vacant for nearly 30 years.
The Yokois, who have long made their home in L.A., visited the house in Marugame regularly, ensuring its upkeep and preservation. It was a chance conversation with the Huntington’s Robert Hori that gave birth to the idea of bringing the family residence to Southern California, where it would not only receive constant care, but could also be shared and widely appreciated.
In 2016, the Yokois approached the Huntington with an offer of donating the shoya house to the San Marino location, thus beginning a seven-year, nearly $11 million project.
Before it could be transported to Los Angeles, the house was in need of restoration that could only be performed by trained artisans and experts of traditional construction in Japan. The structure was dismantled in November 2018 and moved to an aircraft hangar in Matsuyama, where it was reassembled and refurbished, keeping in mind the differences between Japanese seasons and the warm, dry climate of Southern California.
After 10 months of work in Matsuyama, the house was again taken apart and loaded for shipment to the U.S. Groundbreaking at the Huntington site commenced in August 2020.
In the spring and summer of last year, the reconstruction was completed and attention turned to the surrounding gardens, which feature a gatehouse, pond, rock garden, irrigation and farming plots, and a host of plants and trees native to both Japan and Southern California.
“This is a living, breathing structure,” Hori said during a preview of the two-acre site last week. “The wood and natural materials absorb the warmth and moisture of daytime and give it off at night.”
The Japanese Shoya House will be open from noon to 4 p.m. at the Huntington, 1151 Oxford Rd. in San Marino. Visit http://huntington.org for admission rates and information.
Photos by MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS/Rafu Shimpo (except where noted)