Kyu-Asakura House (Former Asakura Residence)

Hidden behind a plain earthen wall in the fashionable, boutique-lined streets of Daikanyama, the Former Asakura Residence is a perfectly preserved wooden mansion from 1919 and one of the best places in Tokyo to understand how the city's elite actually lived a century ago. It was built for Torajiro Asakura, a prominent local politician who chaired the Tokyo Prefectural Assembly, and remained the family home for decades before passing into public hands. Remarkably, it survived both the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and the wartime firebombing that destroyed most of Tokyo's traditional houses, and it is now designated an Important Cultural Property in its entirety, buildings and garden together.

The house is a masterclass in late-Taisho residential design, built at the moment when Japanese architecture was quietly absorbing Western influences without abandoning its own traditions. The rooms are laid out in the classic sukiya-inspired style, with tatami floors, sliding fusuma and shoji screens, and tokonoma alcoves, yet the layout also includes a Western-style reception room with a wooden floor and fireplace, reflecting the dual life of an early-twentieth-century public man who had to entertain in both styles. The craftsmanship is exquisite throughout: hand-planed cedar posts, delicately papered ceilings, and ranma transom carvings.

The genius of the house lies in its relationship with the land. Daikanyama sits on a slope, and the residence is built into the hillside so that its principal rooms look down over a sunken kaiyu-shiki, or stroll-style, garden. The design frames the greenery differently from every window and doorway, turning the changing seasons into a series of composed pictures. From the second-floor reception room, the garden falls away below like a painted scroll; descend into it and you follow winding stone paths past a stone lantern, mossy banks, and carefully placed maples and evergreens.

Visiting is inexpensive and delightfully calm. For a token entry fee of 100 yen you remove your shoes and are free to wander the tatami rooms, sit and contemplate the garden, and climb to the upper floor. The contrast with the trend-conscious shops and cafes just outside the wall is startling — step through the gate and the twenty-first century simply falls silent. Because it is a traditional house, there are steps up into the building and between levels, so it is not fully step-free, but the ground-floor rooms and much of the garden are accessible, and staff are attentive.

Autumn is the standout season, when the maples over the sunken garden blaze red and orange and the low afternoon light pours through the paper screens. Come on a weekday when you may have whole rooms to yourself. The house is a five-minute walk from Daikanyama Station on the Tokyu Toyoko Line, or a slightly longer uphill stroll from JR Ebisu, and pairs beautifully with an afternoon browsing the design shops and the famous Daikanyama Tsutaya bookstore nearby.