Two Meiji-era machiya behind Yasaka Shrine, a signature away from becoming a car park. A Kyoto architect and a workshop of carpenters who build in wood and nothing else took two years to bring them back. People who love old wooden houses have looked after them ever since.
The long-time Japanese owner lived in one house and ran a café in the other. After his death in 2013, both were put up for sale and came close to being demolished to make way for parking.
These century-old machiya — with lattice façades, cypress beams, earth-floored entrances and walls darkened by decades of kitchen smoke — were part of a Kyoto streetscape already disappearing one house at a time.
Instead, word of the sale travelled all the way to Singapore.
The group who bought and restored the houses had no background in hospitality. They were travellers who had spent enough time in Japan to understand what is lost each time a machiya disappears. So they acted quickly. In 2014, they bought both houses and the land beneath them outright, using their own funds, before the site could be cleared for redevelopment.
They set themselves a simple brief:
Give these buildings another hundred years
Then they entrusted the restoration to people who understood how to preserve them.
They appointed Asami Architects and Associates 浅見建築設計事務所, a Kyoto practice experienced in restoring machiya without erasing the traces of their past — soot-darkened beams, gently uneven floorboards and the character accumulated over generations.
The construction was carried out by Tsuji Komuten 辻工務店, specialists in traditional wooden buildings. The houses would remain timber houses in both structure and spirit — not historic façades wrapped around a steel or concrete frame.
The brief was simple: preserve history, renew the structure, and discreetly introduce modern comfort. We kept what could be saved, replaced only what had failed, and added only what was needed to make a century-old machiya comfortable for modern living.
The original load-bearing beams and posts — cypress and pine that have supported the houses for more than a century — were retained wherever they remained sound.
The lattice façades, mushiko-mado insect-cage windows, clay walls and baked-tile roofs were preserved wherever possible, rather than stripped away and replaced.
Over generations, cooking smoke gradually darkened the clay walls of a machiya. Where sections had to be re-plastered, the craftsmen mixed soot into the fresh clay so the new surfaces would sit naturally beside the old.
The result was new plaster with the depth and tone the original walls had taken a century to acquire.
Heating and insulation were discreetly integrated behind the existing walls, with underfloor heating added and new kitchens kept deliberately compact. The comforts are modern; the character remains unmistakably machiya.
Work was completed at the end of 2015. Two houses that had come close to demolition were once again standing, sound and ready to be lived in.
The houses opened to guests in 2016, each let as a private home. That was always the point. A restored machiya does not survive by being admired; it survives by being lived in — warmed in winter, aired in summer and used as a home. The houses were offered in much the same spirit as lending a friend your home, with everything else built around that sense of privacy and care.
BenTen is now owned by a husband and wife from Singapore who share a deep appreciation for old wooden houses. They acquired the machiya after the restoration was complete; the previous owners had already rescued the pair from demolition and funded the two-year restoration.
Their role now is continuity — caring for what has already been saved and preserving the spirit in which the restoration began, one roof tile at a time.
Kyoto continues to lose traditional machiya to redevelopment. Every restored house that remains standing, cared for and lived in makes the case that preservation can have a future.
The houses are still cared for as traditional timber homes need to be — aired, cleaned and repaired with regular attention.
Takase-san welcomes guests at the house and is there when help is needed, while leaving them to enjoy the house in peace. Guests mention his name in their reviews almost as often as the architecture.
Every booking includes access to our bilingual eConcierge, available in English and Japanese. From restaurant reservations to transport and practical arrangements, we help you make the most of your time in Kyoto.
Dwell named BenTen among its Top 10 Vacation Homes in 2017 and returned the following year for a full feature. The recognition was welcome, but the more important measure is simpler: both houses are still standing, still cared for and still lived in.
BenTen’s restoration has been documented internationally as architecture in its own right — with credit to the people who designed, rebuilt and preserved it.
An architectural feature documenting BenTen as a restoration project — the retained machiya character, traditional materials and the careful integration of modern comfort into the century-old houses.
View the project →A full feature on the restoration: the retained latticework and mushiko-mado windows, clay walls and tiled roofs, and the careful modernisation of the interiors without erasing the houses’ past.
Read the feature →BenTen was named one of Dwell’s Top 10 Vacation Homes of 2017 — recognised for preserving their timber structures and bringing the two historic machiya back into use rather than replacing them.
View the feature →Writer Michael Lambe describes a stay at BenTen West from the inside — the rooms, the bath, the garden and the pleasure of exploring Higashiyama straight from the front door.
Read the review →Who built the houses, when, and what was kept.