What the House Is
Former Honda Family Residence Main House (旧本多家住宅主屋, also known as the Kyu Honda Tadatsugu Residence) is a Western-style timber house of the early Showa era in Kake-cho, Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture, and it was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2014. It stands two storeys high under a tiled roof, with a building area of 305 square meters. Okazaki City owns it and opens it to the public.
It was not built in Okazaki. The client, Honda Tadatsugu (1896 to 1999), descended from the Honda family who had held the Okazaki domain and who traced their line to Honda Tadakatsu, one of the four generals closest to Tokugawa Ieyasu. Born the second son of a viscount, educated at the Gakushuin and then in philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University, Tadatsugu chose a plot of about 7,100 square meters in Setagaya, Tokyo, at the age of 36, and drew the basic design of the house himself. Hakuhosha, a building firm, carried out the work, which took roughly a year.
The records disagree on the date of completion. The database of the Agency for Cultural Affairs gives 1931; Okazaki City gives 1932. Tadatsugu lived in the house to the end of his long life. When demolition was proposed, the city took the building on, dismantled and rebuilt it between 2010 and 2012, and opened it to visitors in 2012.
Why It Was Registered
The criterion applied here covers buildings that set a standard for design. Former Honda Family Residence Main House was judged to show how a house of its period ought to have been put together.
The official commentary treats it as a good example of a house that took Japanese rooms into a Western way of living without strain. The exterior is Spanish in manner and the principal rooms inside are Western. Even so, the upper floor holds three Japanese rooms opening one into the next. The Japanese wing was not tacked on: it sits inside a plan that separates the space for receiving guests from the space where the family lived. Okazaki City reads that separation as an early move toward the modern house, in which family privacy began to shape the layout.
The accuracy of the reconstruction supports the listing as well. The city has published the proportion of original material reused: 78 percent of the roof tiles, 66 percent of the tilework and 78 percent of the timber. Buildings that are taken down and rebuilt usually lose more fabric than that. Registration followed two years after the move, in 2014, making Former Honda Family Residence Main House the twelfth nationally registered structure in Okazaki.
What to Look For
Start with the colour of the roof. Former Honda Family Residence Main House is covered in reddish-brown French tiles above walls finished in tinted mortar. Scratch tile faces the arches and window surrounds, and up close the fine vertical scoring in the surface is clear. The overall manner is Spanish, but the pointed arch of the porte-cochere belongs to the Tudor vocabulary. The mixture is deliberate, and it tells you something about how the owner designed.
The south face repays a slow look. On the ground floor the entrance sits under its porte-cochere at the western end, an arcaded terrace of three arches occupies the centre, and a semicircular bow window rises through both storeys at the eastern end. Three devices of quite different character are set in a row along the side that opens to the garden.
A wall fountain stands in the front garden. Water issues from a relief of an orca, placed to face the lion in the gable ornament of the house. The garden ornament and the building ornament are linked by a sightline, and the relationship becomes visible once you shift where you stand.
Indoors, look at the fittings. Radiators are set through the rooms of Former Honda Family Residence Main House, and a fire hydrant stands in the corridor, an unusual thing to find in a private house of the period. Light fittings and furniture were chosen to the owner's taste, and stained glass and the small square tiles then in fashion run through the interiors. Walk on to the Tatami rooms upstairs and the air of the place changes inside the same building.
Visiting
Former Honda Family Residence Main House is open as the Kyu Honda Tadatsugu Residence, with the building itself as the exhibit. Hours run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last entry at 4:30 p.m. Admission is free, though a charge applies while a special exhibition is running. The house closes on Mondays; when a Monday falls on a public holiday, the closure moves to the first following weekday. It also closes from January 1 to 3, from December 29 to 31, and during exhibition changeovers. Period furniture, stained glass and other fittings are on permanent display, and some rooms are let out as exhibition space.
By public transport, get off at Higashi Okazaki station on the Meitetsu line and take a bus from bay 1 toward Higashi Koen-guchi. From the Higashi Koen-guchi stop it is a 3-minute walk. By car it is about 5 minutes from the Okazaki interchange on the Tomei Expressway, a distance of roughly 1 kilometer. Former Honda Family Residence Main House has no car park of its own, so drivers use the one serving the adjoining Higashi Park, which holds about 400 vehicles across its north and south lots. Weekends and event days fill it.
Opening days and charges are subject to change. Check the Okazaki City website for current information before travelling.
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Q&A
- Can you visit Former Honda Family Residence Main House, and what are the opening hours and admission fee?
- It is open to the public as the Kyu Honda Tadatsugu Residence. Hours run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last entry at 4:30 p.m. Admission is free, except while a special exhibition is running, when a charge applies.
- When is Former Honda Family Residence Main House closed?
- It closes on Mondays, and when a Monday is a public holiday the closure moves to the first following weekday. It also closes from January 1 to 3, from December 29 to 31, and during exhibition changeovers.
- How do you get to Former Honda Family Residence Main House, and is there parking?
- From Higashi Okazaki station on the Meitetsu line, take a bus from bay 1 toward Higashi Koen-guchi and walk 3 minutes from that stop. By car it is about 5 minutes from the Okazaki interchange on the Tomei Expressway. There is no dedicated car park; use the adjoining Higashi Park lots, which hold about 400 vehicles.
- Where was Former Honda Family Residence Main House originally built, and when was it moved to Okazaki?
- It was built in Setagaya, Tokyo. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the date as 1931, while Okazaki City gives 1932 as the year of original completion. The city dismantled and rebuilt the house between 2010 and 2012 and opened it to visitors in 2012.
- Why was Former Honda Family Residence Main House given cultural property status?
- It met the criterion covering buildings that set a standard for design. Spanish in overall manner with Tudor elements, it nonetheless holds three connected Japanese rooms on the upper floor, and it is regarded as a good example of a house that absorbed Japanese rooms into Western living. It was registered in 2014.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Honda Family Residence Main House |
|---|---|
| Location | 40-1 Ashibe, Kakemachi, Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structures) |
| Year Designated | Registered in 2014 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Wooden, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 305 square meters |
| Owner | Okazaki City |
| Public Access | Open to the public, free admission (charged during special exhibitions) |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Former Honda Family Residence Main House (Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00010166
- Kyu Honda Tadatsugu Residence, Facility Overview (Okazaki City)
- https://www.city.okazaki.lg.jp/bunka/bunka_shisetsu/1004817/1004841/1004843.html
- About the Kyu Honda Tadatsugu Residence (Okazaki City)
- https://www.city.okazaki.lg.jp/bunka/bunka_shisetsu/1004817/1004841/1004842.html
Last verified: 2026.09.01