Nemoto Family Residence

What the Nemoto Family Residence Is

The Nemoto Family Residence (根本家住宅, Nemoto-ke Jūtaku) is the homestead of a former village-headman family in Ichibu, Abiko City, Chiba Prefecture, centred on a main house from the late Edo period (1830 to 1868); its 4 buildings, the main house, the north and south storehouses and a small household shrine, were entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 14, 2021.

The district name 都部 is read Ichibu, not Miyakobe as the characters might suggest. According to Abiko City, the Nemoto family served as nanushi, the hereditary headman of Ichibu village, from the Edo period onward. The homestead sits on the upland between the Tone River and Lake Teganuma, above the low paddy land that the headman's family once helped administer.

The Nemoto Family Residence was also the first property in Abiko to be placed on the national register. When the Enomoto Family Residence in Fusa followed in 2024, the city described it as the second, after the Nemoto house.

How the Nemoto Family Residence Is Laid Out

The plot runs long from north to south. An approach leaves the road on the north side, follows the eastern edge of the property southward, then turns west into the entrance. The two storehouses stand on either side of that turn, one to the north and one to the south. They were built 33 years apart, the south storehouse in 1867 and the north one in 1900, yet both have gabled roofs of pantiles and white plastered walls above board-clad bases, so they read as a matched pair.

Beyond them, in the middle of the plot, the main house faces east under a large hipped roof. It is a single-storey building with a footprint of 226 m². South of the main house, in the southwest corner, lies the rear garden, and in it stands a household shrine with a footprint of just 0.6 m².

All 4 buildings became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the nation. The storehouses guarding the entrance, the house at the centre and the shrine closing off the garden together show how a headman's homestead in this part of Chiba was arranged.

• Main house: late Edo period (1830 to 1868), altered in 1901 and 1975; 1 storey, 226 m²
• North storehouse: 1900; 2 storeys, 27 m²
• South storehouse: 1867; 2 storeys, 40 m²
• Household shrine: late Meiji period (1898 to 1912); 0.6 m²

The Nemoto Family Residence and the Narita Line

The railway left a visible mark on the Nemoto Family Residence. The main house was originally thatched, but when the Narita Line opened in 1901 the family is said to have replaced the thatch with tiles, fearing sparks from passing steam locomotives (this account comes from Abiko City). The Agency for Cultural Affairs database dates the house to the late Edo period with work in 1901, which fits the story.

The nearest station today is Kohoku on the same line, the Abiko branch of the JR Narita Line, roughly 1 km east of the homestead in a straight line.

Visiting the Nemoto Family Residence

The Nemoto Family Residence is privately owned and still lived in. Abiko City states plainly that, as a private home, it is not open to the public. Entry to the grounds and the interiors is not possible, and no special opening days had been announced as of September 2026.

Photographs of each building are published in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database and on Cultural Heritage Online, which are the practical way to see them. Anyone passing along the road nearby should keep in mind that this is a family's home.