Japanese City Withdraws Teahouse Offer

Torrance’s sister city of Kashiwa, Japan, has withdrawn its offer to give Torrance a teahouse for its new cultural arts center.

A Kashiwa official has written to Torrance City Manager LeRoy J. Jackson, saying he regrets that Kashiwa’s offer of a chashitsu-- a traditional teahouse--is not suited to the design of the Japanese garden being planned for the center.

The 10,000-square-foot garden, worth about $250,000, is to be a gift to the city from Epson America Inc., the Torrance-based affiliate of Seiko Epson Corp. of Japan.

Kashiwa had wanted to give Torrance a chashitsu valued at $70,000 to $80,000 to sit within the garden. But a public controversy developed last month after the architect designing the garden for Epson determined that a chashitsu would not be compatible with his plans. He preferred a more open structure, called an azumaya.

Shuzo Terajima, chairman of the Kashiwa Sister City Committee, wrote that Kashiwa had hoped to give Torrance a “culturally significant” gift to honor the 20th anniversary of the relationship between the two cities.

“We still think that a chashitsu is most suitable,” Terajima wrote in the letter, dated Jan. 12 and received by Torrance officials last week. “But, if your office finds that this gift of a chashitsu affects the final architectural integrity, then, it is best to resolve this by withdrawing our offer.”

Terajima added: “We hope we will be able to find some other suitable gift for our 20th anniversary.”

Mayor Katy Geissert said Torrance will respond to the letter, saying that it regrets the misunderstanding and that “we certainly hope it will not affect the longstanding relationship between the two cities.”

The controversy already has strained relations between City Hall officials and the Torrance Sister City Assn., a private group that works to maintain ties between Torrance and Kashiwa.

The association’s president, Mikko Haggott-Henson, has said she suggested the idea of the teahouse gift to Kashiwa officials more than a year ago. She thought she had the support of Torrance City Hall, based on her conversations with city officials, she said.

But Geissert has said the city never requested the chashitsu.

“This type of structure was not requested by the city. In fact, we did not request anything, as a city,” Geissert said. Both the garden landscape architect and the architect for the cultural arts center agreed that the chashitsu was not compatible with the garden, she said.

And Haggott-Henson said she is reluctant to discuss the teahouse issue further.

“We have this wonderful program, and it’s getting hurt,” she said. “I just hoped that we could put things behind us.

“The reason that it didn’t work out is that we did not communicate, or we did not communicate closely together.”