Kamakura and Hase: Four Houses Between the Hills and the Sea

For nearly a century and a half, Kamakura was the seat of Japan’s first warrior government. The pages date its beginning to 1185 and its fall to 1333, and the town has spent the centuries since as a place of temples, hills and a coast that the capital visits for a day. This chapter belongs to The Kominka Café: A Reader’s Atlas of Old Houses and New Coffee. It follows four old houses that serve food and drink between Kita-Kamakura and Hase, gives the route that links them, and marks where the accounts differ. The stops are drawn on The Kanto Kominka Café Map.

A Warrior Capital, 1185 to 1333

A Tokyo tourism guide gives Tsurugaoka Hachimangu as moved to its present site in 1180 by Minamoto no Yoritomo, and dates the first warrior government in Kamakura to 1185 and its fall to 1333. The temples that a day-trip usually visits belong to that age. Kencho-ji was founded in 1253 and Engaku-ji in 1282; the Great Buddha of Kotoku-in was cast, by the guide’s figures, in 1252 and stands about 11.3 metres high, and we give both numbers as the guide gives them. The Kencho-ji walk from Engaku-ji is about fifteen minutes. In our reading, the four houses below are younger than these temples by several centuries, and they offer a smaller kind of antiquity: one that can be entered and sat in.

The Line Down the Coast

From Tokyo Station the JR Yokosuka Line reaches Kamakura in about 55 to 60 minutes, with trains every ten to fifteen minutes; from Shinagawa it takes about 45 to 50 minutes. Kita-Kamakura is one stop before Kamakura. From Kamakura, the Enoden, which has run along the coast since 1902, reaches Hase in three stops and about four minutes, and Enoshima in about 25 minutes. The Great Buddha is a five-to-seven-minute walk from Hase Station, and Hase-dera is about five minutes’ walk from the Buddha. For walkers the guide describes the Daibutsu Hiking Trail, about three kilometres and 60 to 90 minutes, between Kita-Kamakura and Hase.

Hase: Three Farmhouses From Shirakawa-gō

With Kamakura, at 3-7 Sakanoshita, is made from three traditional farmhouses of Shirakawa-gō that date from the Edo period, 1603 to 1868; Nippon.com, in an article first published in Japanese on 4 August 2026, calls them three 220-year-old homes. They were reassembled into one building in Hase around 1984, using traditional joinery in place of nails, and the building was a restaurant for about 40 years before With Kamakura took it over. The new operators renovated the interior and tidied the garden, kept the beams and the warmth of the timber, and, in the article’s words, rethought the furnishings and the flow of people for contemporary guests.

The hours it gives are 10:00 to 16:00, with last orders at 14:30 for food and 15:30 for drinks; a photo caption gives lunch as 11:00 to 14:30. The article does not state closing days and tells readers to check the official website, which it cites in Japanese. It places the house five minutes on foot from Hase Station on the Enoden.

Hase: A Villa of Two Wings

Kamakura Kitahashi, at 1-11-32 Hase, is a soba restaurant and café in a former villa of the Kagaya family, which Nippon.com describes as built over a century ago and gives no exact year. The article says that the Kamakura municipal government designated it an important scenic building, that its Japanese-style and Western-style wings reflect the Meiji and Taisho periods, and that it was once a dance hall and later the home of the novelist Hitomi Yamaguchi, who lived from 1923 to 1995. The café opened in June 2024.

The Japanese wing has two main rooms of 8 and 10 tatami and a sunlit engawa, with the garden in view from throughout the restaurant. Original pillars, ceilings and flooring were kept and the walls were replastered, and the tables and chairs are of Manchurian ash made by artisans in the Hida region. The Western wing, now the café, has a high ceiling, a chandelier and a fireplace; the name Yamaguchi is said to be scratched into the mantelpiece. The Americano is made with single-origin beans roasted by Nozy Coffee in Harajuku, the desserts are gluten-free and use home-ground buckwheat flour, and the soba is hand-cut. The hours it gives are 11:00 to 15:00 and 17:00 to 20:30 for soba, earlier if sold out, and 10:00 to 18:00 for the café, opening at 9:00 on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays; it is closed on Tuesdays. The article places it six minutes on foot from Yuigahama Station or Hase Station on the Enoden.

Kita-Kamakura: A Hideout in an Old Folk House

Mami-Ana Café opened in 2014. The Kanagawa tourism page calls it a kominka-style café that renovated one of the many old folk houses of Kamakura, glosses the name as a lair of raccoon and describes the idea as a hideout for adult humans in Kita-Kamakura. Hours on the page are 11:30 to 17:00. The page’s recommended lunch is a beef bourguignon stew, served to only 30 customers a day, at roughly 1,500 yen, with pasta and a pita sandwich among the other dishes, and it suggests allowing about an hour. The same page lists nearby attractions but gives no directions from Kita-Kamakura Station, no street address and no clear closing days, so a visitor should check the café’s own channels before relying on a lunch.

Kamakura: A House That Looks Like a Home

Tsubame Café, in Kamakura proper, is described in a Japaholic article of 18 November 2025 as a house that has stood for 85 years, looking from outside like a private residence, with the name on a sign by the gate. The article places it ten minutes’ walk from Kamakura Station. It reports a seasonal menu of organic fare, dessert-and-drink sets and a lunch served in limited quantities, and advises arriving early on weekends. The article does not give opening hours, closing days, a price list, an address or a telephone number, and neither do we.

Walking It: One Day, Four Houses

• By rail: JR to Kita-Kamakura, one stop before Kamakura; the Enoden from Kamakura to Hase, three stops.
• By foot: Kita-Kamakura to Hase on the Daibutsu Hiking Trail, about 60 to 90 minutes by the guide’s figure.
• By appetite: With Kamakura’s last order for food is 14:30, and Mami-Ana’s set lunch is capped at 30 a day, so a reader who wants both should decide which to take at midday and which to take as a drink. Kamakura Kitahashi serves soba again from 17:00 to 20:30, and is closed on Tuesdays.

Reading the Coast

Hours are as the pages state them, at the dates the pages bear. Confirm before travelling; How to Visit a Kominka Café: Hours, Shoes and Patience explains what else to check.

Our Reading: A House That Moved

None of the other houses in this atlas is described by its page as having been moved. With Kamakura is different: three farmhouses from one region became one building in another, reassembled, the article says, with traditional joinery in place of nails. In our reading, it is the clearest evidence in the atlas that a kominka is not a place but a structure, and that the structure can outlive its address. For the broader picture of regional house types, see The Kominka Café: A Reader’s Atlas of Old Houses and New Coffee.

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Questions and answers

How long does it take to reach Kamakura from Tokyo?

About 55 to 60 minutes from Tokyo Station on the JR Yokosuka Line, and about 45 to 50 minutes from Shinagawa, according to a Tokyo tourism guide.

How do I get from Kamakura to Hase?

By the Enoden, three stops and about four minutes. The Great Buddha is a five-to-seven-minute walk from Hase Station.

What is special about With Kamakura?

Nippon.com says that it was made from three Edo-period farmhouses of Shirakawa-gō, reassembled in Hase around 1984.

Is there an old house in Hase that serves soba?

Kamakura Kitahashi, in a former Kagaya family villa that Nippon.com calls over a century old, serves soba and runs a café; it is closed on Tuesdays.

Can I book lunch at Mami-Ana?

The Kanagawa tourism page says that its recommended lunch is limited to 30 customers a day and does not describe a booking system. Check the café’s own channels.

References

Dates and figures in this chapter were checked against these pages. Where accounts differ, the text says so.

• Nippon.com: With Kamakura
• Nippon.com: Kamakura Kitahashi
• Kanagawa Tourism: Mami-Ana Café
• Japaholic: Tsubame Café
• Tokyo Tourism: Kamakura day trip

Continue reading

• The Kominka Café: A Reader’s Atlas of Old Houses and New Coffee
• Old Tokyo East: Kayaba, Koguma and the Engawa Café
• How to Visit a Kominka Café: Hours, Shoes and Patience
• Five Walks Through Tokyo and One Beyond It
• The Tokyo Atlas: A Reader’s Guide to the Capital and Its Counterpoint
• The Kanto Kominka Café Map
• Zen and Tea
• The Japonista Universe
• Collector Guides
• The Japonista Thesis

Index terms: kamakura · kamakura kitahashi · kita-kamakura · hase · kominka cafe kamakura · with kamakura · mami-ana cafe · tsubame cafe · shirakawa-go farmhouse · enoden · kamakura day trip from tokyo · great buddha kotoku-in · engaku-ji · kencho-ji · kamakura old house cafe