Ito Family Residence Retirement House

A Thatched Workshop With Silkworms in the Roof

The Ito Family Residence Retirement House (伊藤家住宅隠居屋, Itō-ke Jūtaku Inkyoya) is an early Meiji-era thatched building on the Ito family estate in Masuo 4-chome, Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on November 2, 2018. It is a single-storey timber building under a Kayabuki thatched Yosemune-zukuri hipped roof, with a building area of 84 square metres, standing southeast of the main house and facing west.

Despite the name, it did not start out as a place for a retired parent to live. According to Kashiwa City, it is said to have served as a barn, a silkworm room and a workshop, and was probably converted in the early Showa era, when additions were built onto the front and onto the back of the south room.

Inside, three rooms sit in a row. The south room, with its raised wooden floor, was for living; the middle and north rooms were work spaces. The space under the roof was used for raising silkworms. Even after the conversion, you can still read a building where work and daily life shared one roof.

Reading the Exterior

On the front of the Ito Family Residence Retirement House, the eaves are lifted and carried out on projecting beams in the Degeta-zukuri manner. Lean-to Geya extensions run along both front and back, and at the south end of the rear a wing juts out. Around the core of the thatched hipped roof, the outline of the building turns several corners.

That irregular shape is a record of change. The early Showa additions went onto the front and onto the back of the south room. Published sources do not say exactly which parts of the lean-tos and rear wing are original, but the sequence from workshop to dwelling is written into the building's silhouette.

Dating and Why It Was Registered

The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the Ito Family Residence Retirement House to the early Meiji era, between 1868 and 1882, and notes a remodelling in the early Showa era. Kashiwa City treats the construction date as unknown but suggests the first years of Meiji because its structure resembles that of the cowshed.

It was registered as a building that contributes to the historic landscape of the country, and the agency credits it with conveying the makeup of a traditional farmstead. A work building with a silkworm loft is also evidence that sericulture was part of life on this farm.

Visiting

The Ito Family Residence Retirement House stands inside a private estate where the owners live. The interior is closed, and the property cannot be entered, so the exterior can only be seen from places open to the public.

Directions and visiting etiquette for the estate as a whole are on the Ito Family Residence page.