■Garden
It consists of a front courtyard at front entrance and curving inner courtyard
from north side to east side of the main building. For constructing the
garden, it is said that a tea ceremony master Sousen Kizu assisted the
design and 24 lanterns in small and medium size were installed in the garden.
For the inner courtyard, you might be able to feel taste of the past with
landscape stones located in each place as well as stone arrangement of
washbasin remain. The age for huge maple trees, oaks, and hollies is considered
approximately 200 years. For the renovation, the garden kept its original
formation as much as possible.
■Sohachi Yamaoka (1907-1978)
He was born in farm family. His real name is Shouzou Fujino. In 1933, he
firstly published the periodical "Taishu Club (People's club)"
as a chief editor himself, and in the following year, he started his writing
activity as he wrote "Sado-no-Koyosannjin (Mountaineer of autumn leaves
in Sado)" with his pen name "Sohachi Yamaoka". Then, he
joined the club called "Shinyoukai" of Shin Hasegawa in 1940,
received the Incentive Award of Noma Creative Writing in 1942 with his
novels "Kaitei senki (War at bottom of ocean)" and "Senkan-doujouki
(Story of riding on submarine )", and in the following year, he wrote
the situational novel "Shikono-mitate (Holly shield)". After
the Second World War, he continued his various creative writing works including
the significant writing work "Ieyasu Tokugawa" by taking 17 years
since 1950 to complete it. He eventually won "Shin Hasegawa Award"
and "The Literary Award of Eiji Yoshikawa" in 1967 and 1968 respectively.
On the other hand, he made various contributions to social education such
as working as a chairperson of Japan Youth Hostel Association. In 1964,
he purchased this residence of chief strainer and often stayed here since
then. The original transcript of "Haru-no-sakamiti (Sloping road in
spring)" that was broadcasted in NHK and created the Yagyu boom in
1971 was also written in this residence.
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