The largest building on the estate
The Kamiya Family Residence Inner Room (神谷家住宅奥座敷, Kamiya-ke Jūtaku Okuzashiki) is a late Meiji reception wing in Izumicho, Anjo City, Aichi Prefecture, registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 18 April 2008. With a floor area of 147 square metres it is the biggest of the fourteen buildings registered on this estate, and it stands well back from the road, north of the main house.
The structure is single-storey timber, roofed in pantiles over a combination of hipped and gabled forms. Inside, two ten-mat rooms sit alongside a nine-mat room with a display alcove and an eight-mat room, the four arranged in a square grid. A veranda runs around the whole perimeter. A tea room occupies the north side.
The Kamiya Family Residence Inner Room carries registration number 23-0290, following directly on from the front reception room at 23-0289. Two separate spaces for receiving guests, numbered in sequence, tell you something about how this household operated.
Sukiya taste carried through
The registration criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of Japan. What earns the Kamiya Family Residence Inner Room its place is less its size than how consistently the sukiya idiom, the refined teahouse manner of building, is carried through it. The ceiling battens, for instance, are round bamboo rather than squared timber. That is not a saving; it is a decision about what kind of room this was going to be.
The date matters too. Building a reception wing of this quality in the last years of Meiji shows a landowning family in the Nishi-Mikawa plain still willing to spend on formal architecture well into the modern period. At the centre of the same compound the main house is thought to date from the middle of the Edo period and holds a separate status as a City of Anjo Designated Cultural Property from 1986. Buildings of very different centuries stand within one set of walls here.
What to look for
The four rooms in a square grid can be opened into a single hall by removing the sliding partitions. That is a room built for weddings, funerals and village meetings, and it makes the social function of a leading rural household visible in plan form.
The nine-mat room with its alcove is the formal one. The veranda wrapping the exterior works as a regulator between house and garden: slide the paper screens open and the garden comes in, close them and the veranda becomes a narrow corridor of its own.
Note the tea room on the north side. The front reception room, registered as 23-0289, also has a tea room attached to it. Two tea spaces in one compound suggests that tea here was ordinary practice rather than an occasional flourish.
Visiting and access
The Kamiya Family Residence Inner Room belongs to a private home and is not open to the public. It sits deep in the compound, so it is effectively invisible from the street; what a visitor can see is the outward face of the estate, the main gate and the fences. Photograph from the public road only, and not into the grounds or the living quarters. The City of Anjo asks the same of anyone visiting its historic buildings, most of which remain in private hands.
Take the JR Tokaido Line to Anjo or Mikawa-Anjo Station, then the city Ankuru bus on the Nanbu line, alighting at Kaminokiri or Izumi Jozanen. Buses are infrequent, so check times first. Roughly seven minutes on foot to the south, the city garden of Jozanen recreates the atmosphere of Shisendo in Kyoto on the birthplace of its builder, the early Edo poet Ishikawa Jozan. It opens 9:00 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:30, and closes Mondays, with the following day substituted when a Monday is a national holiday, and over the new year.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Aichi
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Kamiya Family Residence Inner Room
- [ Nagoya Castle & Atsuta Shrine History Tours ]
Q&A
- Is the Kamiya Family Residence Inner Room open to visitors?
- No. It is part of a private home, and because it stands deep inside the compound it cannot really be seen from the road either.
- How big is the Kamiya Family Residence Inner Room?
- It has a floor area of 147 square metres, making it the largest of the fourteen registered buildings on the estate.
- What is the interior layout of the Kamiya Family Residence Inner Room?
- Two ten-mat rooms, a nine-mat room with an alcove and an eight-mat room, set in a square grid with a veranda around the outside and a tea room on the north side.
- When was this building registered?
- On 18 April 2008, under registration number 23-0290, together with thirteen other buildings on the same estate.
- How does it differ from the estate's front reception room?
- The front room is early Meiji, faces the forecourt and covers 85 square metres. The inner wing is late Meiji, stands to the north and covers 147 square metres.
Basic Information
| Name | Kamiya Family Residence Inner Room (神谷家住宅奥座敷) |
|---|---|
| Location | 13 Kaminokiri, Izumicho, Anjo City, Aichi Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Building) |
| Year Designated | 2008 (Heisei 20), registered |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Single-storey timber, floor area 147 square metres |
| Owner | Private |
| Public Access | Not open to the public; exterior of the estate visible from the public road |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: Kamiya Family Residence Inner Room
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00007039
- Cultural Heritage Online: Kamiya Family Residence Inner Room
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/144301
- City of Anjo: Historic Buildings
- https://www.city.anjo.aichi.jp/shisei/shisetsu/kyoikushisetsu/maibun-structure.html
- Anjo City Cultural Properties Catalogue: Kamiya Family Residence Main House
- https://www.katch.ne.jp/~anjomuse/bunkazai_zuroku/kamiyake_jyuutaku/index.html
- City of Anjo: Jozanen Garden
- https://www.city.anjo.aichi.jp/shisei/shisetsu/kyoikushisetsu/jozanen.html
Last verified: 2026.08.30