Greenwich Landmarks: The Yasukata Murai Home 1889

*Editor's note: This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Greenwich Historical Society’s Landmarks program, formerly known as “Signs of the Times.” The program was created in 1987 to recognize, document and preserve the architectural heritage of Greenwich. Since then, the Historical Society has plaqued nearly 300 homes from Colonial to Post-modernist structures, both public and private. Participating homeowners receive a bronze plaque, documentation in the form of a title search and a narrative highlighting architectural details (and the sometimes-surprising history of previous occupants).
 
As part of the celebration to mark this milestone, Susan Nova, former longtime real estate columnist for the Greenwich Time, is partnering with the Historical Society to produce an article each month that will feature a historically significant home plaqued by the Historical Society. And Greenwich Patch is proud to partner with the Greenwich Historical Society to bring readers a fascinating history of the homes that decorate the town's landscape. 

Yasukata Murai, a Japanese silk importer born to a Samurai family in Kyushu, came to Riverside in 1889 and bought land on Glen Avon Drive overlooking Cos Cob Harbor.  There he built a large, many-towered home in the Queen Anne style. The family stayed there for more than a half-century, and the home, in wood-shingled majesty, still stands on its waterside knoll.

At the time, Riverside had only a bake shop, a grocery, a drug store and a one-room post office.

Murai was married to Caroline Bailey, daughter of Charles and Katharine Bailey, and their property also included a lot for a carriage house across the street.

The two-and-a-half story house is topped with a high hipped roof, with pedimented dormers and granite ashlar chimneys.

A wrap-around porch has thick, shingled piers, resting on granite ashlar pedestals, and tapering toward the bottom, a sign of an Oriental influence. A sign of Japanese design are the curved corners of one of the towers with a pyramid-like roof and flared eaves that give a pagoda-like effect.

Inside, the house is notable for the fanciful woodwork, ornamented by a wide variety of moldings from rope to bead-and-reel. High, paneled wainscoting surrounds the elaborate reception hall with fireplace, seating niche and the grand staircase.

Around the hall, tall wood-paneled pedestals support shorter rounded and fluted columns. A continuous six-part, open-work valance of wood with arcs and skewered wooden balls crown the columns.

A Syrian-arched, stained-glass window dominates the space with its 10-foot width. The fireplace has fluted Ionic columns and a leaf-and-dart molding around the white-brick surround. Around the edge of the ceiling, flowers appear in bas-relief plaster.

Upstairs, the master bedroom has a polygonal bay outlined by a chamfered beam. The fireplace has a mantel with curved corners supported by curved brackets, and carved pendants adorn the adjoining pilasters. Another bedroom features a door and window frames of bird’s eye maple, and a third is set into the round corner tower.

In the 1870s, when Murai came to the United States, nearly all silk was imported from China, but that was soon to change, thanks to Murai and his Glen Avon neighbor, Ryochiro  Arai, who both helped build trade relations between their two countries.

By 1908 the Morimura Arai Co., of which Murai was a one-sixth owner, handled one-third of the direct silk exports to the U.S. The company was also one of the first to import American cotton into Japan.

Arai is believed to have been the first Japanese golfer to play in the U.S. - in 1889 at the Atlantic City Country Club, then known as the Northfield Links. An instant enthusiast, he tried to interest Murai in the game, with little initial success.

 “Why should I get up early in the morning on my vacations and spend the day chasing a silly little ball around the golf course?” Murai asked.

 A sterling first shot by Murai changed his outlook, and the two became inseparable golf companions.

* The images and information for this article came from the Greenwich Historical Society’s William B. Finch Jr. Library & Archives. Open to the public, homeowners, researchers, visiting scholars and students, the library and archives offers an impressive range of information about Greenwich. The collection encompasses historical records, ephemera, maps, deeds, photographs, manuscripts and the personal papers of many prominent citizens. If there’s anything you want know about Greenwich history, chances are you’ll find it here. For more information about the , visit www.greenwichhistory.org. Greenwich Historical Society, 39 Strickland Rd., Cos Cob, CT 06807, 203-869-6899.