Jinpukaku Tottori

Jinpukaku is a European-style mansion originally planned as a villa for the Ikeda family, the former Lords of Tottori. It was built in the first decade of the twentieth Century.

There is a nice Japanese-style garden to the rear. The mansion is located at the base of the ruins of Tottori Castle.

It was the first building in Tottori to get electric lights.

Crown Prince Yoshihito, later to become the Taisho Emperor, stayed here on his tour of the San-in region in 1907

The house has a small collection of items relating to the Ikeda Clan, and the rooms are elegantly furnished, but the main attraction is the spiral staircase.

There seems to be a much more continental feel to this building than with many other "Western" buildings built in te late 18th and early 20th centuries, like the Mansion for Foreign Engineers in Kagoshima.