Enomoto Family Residence Kettle House

What Is the Enomoto Family Residence Kettle House?

The Enomoto Family Residence Kettle House (榎本家住宅釜場, Enomoto-ke Jūtaku Kamaba) is a single-storey timber outbuilding for fire and boiling work, standing northeast of the Enomoto family's main house in Fusa, Abiko City, Chiba Prefecture; built in the early Showa era, between 1926 and 1945, it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 3 December 2024.

The Kettle House has a building area of 31 square meters. A kamaba is, broadly, the place where large iron kettles sit over a hearth for heating water and cooking in quantity. Putting that fire and smoke in a building of its own, away from the house, is the point of this one, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as valuable precisely because it survives as a separate kamaba.

Abiko City's press release explains that the Kamaba was placed in the first years of the Showa era by comparing its construction and the weathering of its timbers with the other buildings on the estate.

A Smoke Vent and an Open Lean-to

The Enomoto Family Residence Kettle House runs east to west under a gabled Kirizuma-zukuri roof of sheet iron. At the center of the ridge sits a kemudashi, a smoke vent; such vents are usually built as a small raised roof on top of the main one, letting smoke and heat from the hearth escape.

On the front, the roof slope is carried further down to form a Geya lean-to that is left open, with no walls. Simply by stretching the roof, the builders gained a sheltered outdoor work area under the eaves.

Beams Above an Earthen Floor

Inside are 2 rooms, east and west. The east room has an earthen Doma floor and no ceiling, so you look straight up into a Wagoya roof frame built with two tiers of beams. An open space like this would also have helped draw smoke up toward the vent.

The Agency's database shows this beam framing in a photograph alongside the exterior view. For a modest single-storey work building, the double tier of exposed beams is the thing to notice inside the Kamaba.

Altered or Moved in 1958?

The Agency for Cultural Affairs database describes the Enomoto Family Residence Kettle House as altered around 1958. That is when the widening of the Tone River levee led the family to move buildings across the site by hikiya (曳家), and the Agency lists the main house, annex, north storehouse and main gate as relocated at that time.

Abiko City's press release of July 2024, however, names the main house, annex, kettle house and main gate as the four buildings moved. The two sources therefore differ on what happened to the Kamaba in 1958. This article follows the Agency's record.

Why It Was Registered

The Enomoto Family Residence Kettle House was registered under number 12-0331 for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency credits it with shaping the view on the north side of the estate, the back of the property, opposite the gate and main house on the street side.

Visiting

The Enomoto Family Residence Kettle House is part of a private home, and neither the building nor its surroundings are open to the public. It stands at the back of the grounds, northeast of the main house, so it is hard to see from outside.

An exterior view from the southwest and a photograph of the beam framing can be found in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database and on Cultural Heritage Online. Please do not enter the property.