{Name:26}

900 Lakewood Ave
Lakewood, New Jersey 08701

The teahouse is believed to have been exhibited at the Japan-British Exhibition in London in 1900. Following the exhibition, it was sold to George J. Gould and became part of the new Japanese Garden at Georgian Court, the Gould Estate. The garden was designed by Takeo Shiota in 1910 and is displayed in his 1916 book, "Japanese Gardens and Houses" as well as issues of the 1916 magazine "House and Garden." The teahouse was renovated in the 1990s. Between 2014 and 2024, it was renovated more extensively by Peter Wechsler, with the interior straw mats being replaced with tatami, new shoji installed, wall paper and interior paint removed, part of the ceiling replaced, exterior bench replaced, and bamboo part of the roof replaced.

The original purpose was for the Japan-British Exhibition in London in 1910. The teahouse is believed to have been designed by architect Hayami-ryū iemoto Sōen Sokyū (Niwa no Sokyū – 1840-1924) (see the article "Lost in Translation: the journey of a Meiji-era teahouse," by Beatrice Shoemaker, published in 2019 in the journal Andon volume 108). Following the exhibition, George Gould purchased it and had it installed in the new Japanese Garden that was designed by Takeo Shiota as a birthday gift to George's wife Edith in 1910. The Gould family sold their estate, Georgian Court, to the Sisters of Mercy in 1923, and the Sisters moved their college there in 1924, renaming the college Georgian Court College. Since 2017, the teahouse has been used several times per year for cultural events including tea ceremonies and meditative experiences open to the public. In December 2024, Japanese Grand Tea Master Hayami Sōen led a Japanese delegation to Georgian Court to bless and offer tea in the teahouse.

Our carpenter, Peter Wechsler, said, "I would say that the teahouse was built as a traditional teahouse, based on both the design and construction details. It was probably constructed in Japan, by traditional carpenters, using only hand tools, since that is basically all they had at the time. It was probably built by sukiya-daiku, carpenters specializing in tea house style construction, since this is a specialized style of construction within Japanese architecture.. Both the tea house and gate were constructed mostly of round posts and beams fitted together, probably sugi, Japanese cedar, Cryptomeria japonica. The posts on the gates have what is called sewari, a Japanese method of kerfing round posts to the center to control checking, so the tea house posts are probably the same. One of the other distinctive Japanese techniques you can see on the gate is that the original rafters are Japanese chestnut, hexagonal with decorative adzing.

The design of the teahouse is a classic sanjodaime, with three mats for guests, and a ¾ length mat for the host. There is a tokonoma alcove with a tokonoma post, or tokobashira, and also a nakabashira, a post separating the server’s area from the guests. There is also a server’s entrance with an arched top on the door, called a kyudoguchi, and a mizuya, or room for tea preparation. The only thing that is missing is the low door for the guests to enter, called a nijiriguchi, which is standard in a wabi-style tearoom, although it does have a renji-mado, the window with a bamboo grille that is usually above it. Instead, it has entrance stone with shoji doors in the front. According to Beatrice Shoemaker, this is because Hayami-ryu, which was supposed to be responsible for the design, had broken away from the strict wabi style tea practiced by Sen no Rikyu, and revived a more aristocratic style of tea. Therefore, instead of the nijiriguchi, the low humble ‘crawling in’ entrance they only have a standing entrance with full size shoji, called a kinin-guchi, or ‘nobleman’s entrance.’

I am therefore convinced that it was built as an authentic teahouse, designed for use in tea ceremony, and built with traditional Japanese techniques, and I agree with Beatrice Shoemaker that the mostly’ source is the Japanese British Exhibition in London in 1910. I realize that the connection with Hayami-ryu is completely based on oral tradition, but I am willing to accept it. In any case, Takeo Shiota has a picture in his 1916 book ‘Japanese Houses and Gardens’ of a ‘gracious maiden’ practicing tea ceremony in it. (I notice that this shows the traditional paper on the bottom of the wall, called koshibari.) There was a lot of interest in Japanese gardens, with almost any kind of building in them called a teahouse, but it may be the earliest authentic tea house in the country.

Unfortunately, it fell into some degree of disrepair, and some of the repairs were unfortunate in terms of traditional Japanese carpentry, but the basic structure was in good shape. I am particularly unhappy that everything got painted dark brown at some point. As Takeo Shiota says in his book, ‘As a rule, all the wood was left in its natural color, without paint, and was carefully selected to produce the beautiful effects which were sought.’ I made new shoji and tatami, and restored the tokonoma, and restored the bench outside and the roof above it, trying to keep it as traditional as possible. I also made a hearth or ro in the floor. When I came back, I also replaced the ceiling and put something more like the traditional plaster on the walls. I am sure that the ceiling was originally boards, as shown in the 1916 photo of the interior. When I replaced the ceiling I found round holes of different sizes at regular intervals along the top trim, so the perpendicular battens shown in the photo were probably bamboo."