HASHIMOTO, Wakayama -- Soft light seeped through the glass facade of a stately, dark wooden building in this western Japan city on an autumn evening.

The structure is the former Japanese-style inn Katsuragikan, which retains a majestic appearance in front of JR Koyaguchi Station (formerly Kiwa Railway's Nagura Station). It used to be busy with overnight guests visiting Mount Koya -- a major Buddhist pilgrimage site. Although the exact date of its construction is unclear, Katsuragikan's founder distributed its promotional flyers for worshippers from all over the country around 1903, after the Kiwa Railway line opened to Nagura Station in 1901.

The three-story building has a hip-and-gable roof structure, with a combination of a curved "kara-hafu" gable and a triangular "chidori-hafu" gable on the top. Hiroshi Oya, 62, the fifth-generation head of the facility, said, "I heard that it became a three-story structure between the Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926) eras. While the wood on the exterior and interior looks shiny black, it is made of whitewood, so it must have been white initially." This means the blackness is the result of the passage of time.

The inn closed in 1994, and the building was registered as a national important cultural property in 2001, and went through preservation and repair work in 2012. It was reopened in March 2024 as "Cafe Katsuragikan," with carpeting on the second floor and tables and chairs made from wood from the demolished annex. Other than that, the interior and exterior remain unchanged, with the atmosphere of the old days still present.

(Japanese original by Masashi Mimura, Osaka Photo and Video Department)

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The Japanese version of this article was originally published on Nov. 3, 2024.

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This series explores Japan's architectural wonders and secrets of yesteryear. Read more Retro Japan articles here.