A hilltop of Western houses with tea rooms
Yamate is a hill above the port of Yokohama, about 40 minutes by train from Shibuya on a line that runs straight through to Motomachi-Chukagai Station at its foot. From the late 1800s, foreign merchants and diplomats made their homes on this hill, and several of their houses still stand, free to walk through. Some have tea rooms, where you can sit with tea or cake and look out at the garden.
A house built in 1926 for an American family, with a living hall that rises two stories at its center. Its tea room, Cafe The Rose, looks out over a rose garden, a pleasant place for a pot of tea. Seats cannot be reserved.
The home of a Swiss silk trader, a white wooden house where you can walk through the rooms and then sit down for coffee and cake in the tea room inside. It has only a few seats, so there may be a wait at busy times.
The grand wooden home of a Japanese diplomat, built in 1910 and now protected as a national Important Cultural Property. Next door, a garden cafe has a terrace looking over the garden, a good place for a light lunch.
A house from the 1920s built for a foreign resident, with its rooms furnished as they might have been then, from the parlor to the bedrooms. It is free to enter, and there is no tea room, so see it on the way between the houses that have one.
A cafe in a small Western-style house from the late 1920s, serving cakes and tea in its old rooms. A line can form on weekends, so a weekday or an early arrival is easier.