Hinjitsukan - A palace for distinguished guests in the pure beach, Futamiura

Hinjitsukan was built in 1887 by an incorporated foundation Shin’enkai, a veneration association for Ise Jingu. 

 Named by Imperial Prince Arisugawanomiya-Taruhito, who was the first president of Shin’enkai, “Hinjitsukan” stands for “a palace at which distinguished guests stay and above which the sun rises.”

The elegant palace was constructed only in two months, in order to make it in time for a stay by the Empress Dowager Eisho, who was the biological mother of the Emperor Meiji. Then, the Emperor Taisho (Imperial Prince Harunomiya-Yoshihito) made a long-term stay  in his childhood for summering, recuperation, and swimming training. Also, many of the successive Imperial families and VIPs from various worlds made a stay. Once sold to the neighboring inn in 1911, Hinjitsukan was donated to former Futami Town after the inn closed its business. Currently, it is a museum managed by an NPO which Ise City designates as the administrator.

The great hall with a coved-coffered ceiling of Momoyama style is 120 tatami-mat size (about 200㎡). A chandelier is adopted for lighting.

In addition to the detailed designs by Shoshiro Shiono, an architect of Jingu in the 57th Shikinen Sengu, there are a lot of luxurious materials including the solid timber of Yakushima cedar for the alcove’s ceiling.

What still remain as it was founded are an exceptional double-coffered ceiling, which lays another coffer on the coffered ceiling adopted to strengthen formality, a floor stile of Wajima lacquer decorated with lamina of raden (mother-of-pearl), and so on. 

 This guest room, with decorations of the flower-shaped crest (the crest of Jingu) at all parts, was used by many of the successive Imperial families and VIPs from various worlds. The room commands a panoramic view of a spacious garden as well as the pure beach of Futamiura.

There are six old guest rooms on the first floor, which were renovated to be used as a rental gallery by removing walls and doors from the state of former Futami-kan. The floor pillars of Sakura (cherry) Room and Matsu (pine) Room are made of cherry wood and red pine wood respectively, and the ranma (openwork screens above the sliding partitions between two rooms) of Ume (plum) Room are made of plum wood. Those details are designed so elaborately as to reflect what it was like in the past.     

Deliberate consideration is given by landscapers to every part of the circuit style garden, which is part of a Place of National Scenic Beauty, Futamiura. 

 The garden itself is well worth seeing as it has Suikinkutsu (a buried earthen jar), Taisho-Tenno-Okakeishi (a stone which the Emperor Meiji sat on), a well whose curb is built of Kurama stones (diorite stones), several types of stone lanterns and so on.