A Textile Family's House of 1937
The Kodo Family Residence, Main Building (幸道家住宅主屋, Kōdō-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a Shōwa-period private house in Sabae City, Fukui Prefecture, built in Shōwa 12 (1937) and entered on Japan's National Register of Tangible Cultural Properties (buildings) on 23 October 2008.
Sabae is known abroad for eyeglass frames, an industry it has dominated since the early twentieth century. Before the frames came cloth. Habutae silk and, later, rayon made fortunes here, and the Kōdō family were in textiles. Sabae City records date the building of the house to the peak of that business, a campaign of work running through Shōwa 10 to 12 (1935 to 1937).
The Agency for Cultural Affairs register lists a single structure: timber frame, two storeys with a single-storey portion, tiled roof, building footprint 185 square metres. The criterion applied at registration was that the building contributes to the historical landscape of the country, which is a different test from the one used for architectural exemplars. It rewards what a building does for the street it stands on.
The house occupies a corner plot, and its principal elevations face south along the street and west toward the garden. Sabae City gives dimensions in traditional units: six ken one shaku along the ridge, four and a half ken in depth, roughly eleven metres by eight.
A second building on the same plot, the Kōdō Family Residence Detached Wing (幸道家住宅離れ), was registered on the same day under its own number. This article covers the main building.
Black Plaster and a Roof in Three Steps
The registration was the sixty-first round of listings, register number 18-0069.
What the register singles out is the roof composition. The main range along the street is kirizuma, a straight gable, laid in sangawara pantiles, and entered on its long side, an arrangement called hirairi. Its slope is mukuri, cambered slightly outward rather than dished inward, so the surface swells. Off the west face a reception wing projects, roofed irimoya, hipped-and-gabled, and also cambered. North of that a smaller projection steps down lower still, carrying its own small irimoya gable.
Stand on the west side and you read the whole thing in layers: the tiled cap of the earthen boundary wall, then a two-stage arrangement of irimoya gables above it, then the broad gable of the main roof behind. Three roof planes at three heights, all curving the same way. Fukui has grander houses. Few of them manage this particular piece of massing.
The south front is the formal face. A doorway sits at the centre with projecting latticed bays, degōshi, to either side. The upper wall is ōkabe, a wall built out over the posts so the timber frame disappears, and it is finished in black lime plaster. Window openings are raised in a slightly proud frame against that dark ground. The effect is severe and expensive at once, which was presumably the point in 1937.
The detached wing next door repeats the palette. Its east and north walls take the same black plaster over vertical boarding at the base, closed off to the outside, while the garden side opens under an earthen-floored eave. Inside are two connected rooms of eight and six mats, and the eight-mat room carries a coved ajiro ceiling of woven strips, with the ridge set high to make the space feel larger.
A Private House, and What That Means
Sabae City states plainly that the interior of the Kōdō Family Residence is not open to the public. The property is under private management, and the national register carries no owner's name in its public field. There is no admission desk, no opening hours and no tour.
This is worth being direct about. Registered Tangible Cultural Property status in Japan is a light-touch designation designed to keep buildings in use, and a great many registered properties are ordinary homes where families live. Visiting means looking at the exterior from the public road while walking past, and nothing more: no entering the plot, no photographing through gates or windows, no ringing the bell. If you want to see the roof composition described above, the west elevation reads well from the street outside the earthen wall.
Addresses are a complication here. The national register records the property at Tadokoro-chō 9, aza Kitakawaseyama 11, a cadastral description. Sabae City's own cultural property page places it in Kōwa 1-chōme. Sabae changed a number of its town names and boundaries between the 1970s and 1997, and the register most likely preserves the older form; both are in Sabae City, but anyone plotting a route should treat the exact location as unconfirmed. Given that the house is a home and not a visitor attraction, that ambiguity is not a problem to be solved.
For anyone in Sabae anyway, the city has a good deal that is open. The Cultural Affairs Group and the Cultural Properties Group at Sabae City Hall (0778-53-2257 and 0778-51-5999) answer questions about registered buildings, and the city publishes a full list of its designated and registered properties online. Sabae Station has been operated by Hapi-Line Fukui rather than JR West since 16 March 2024, when the Hokuriku Shinkansen extension to Tsuruga moved the old main line to the new company.
One name to keep straight: Kōdō (幸道) is a different surname from Kōmura (幸村). The Kōmura Family Residence, Main Building (幸村家住宅主屋) is a separate registered property of 1917 in Jōetsu City, Niigata Prefecture, registered in February 2012. Searches on the kanji alone will mix the two.
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Q&A
- Can you visit the inside of the Kodo Family Residence, Main Building?
- No. Sabae City states that the interior is not open to the public. The building is a private residence under private management, with no opening hours or admission. Only the exterior can be seen, from the public road.
- When was the Kodo Family Residence, Main Building built and registered?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to Shōwa 12 (1937); Sabae City describes the house as put in order during Shōwa 10 to 12. It was registered on 23 October 2008, register number 18-0069, with official notice on 10 November 2008.
- What is distinctive about the architecture of the Kodo Family Residence, Main Building?
- Three tiled roof planes at three heights, all with a mukuri camber: a broad street-side gable, a hipped-and-gabled reception wing to the west, and a lower projection north of it. The south front has black lime plaster over the upper wall with projecting lattice bays flanking the door.
- Why does the address of the Kodo Family Residence, Main Building differ between sources?
- The national register uses a cadastral address in Tadokoro-chō, while Sabae City's cultural property page gives Kōwa 1-chōme. Sabae revised town names and boundaries in several rounds up to 1997, and the register appears to preserve the older description.
- Is the Kodo Family Residence Detached Wing registered separately from the Main Building?
- Yes. The detached wing has its own register number, 18-0070, and was registered on the same day, 23 October 2008. It is a single-storey building with eight-mat and six-mat connected rooms and a coved woven ajiro ceiling.
Basic Information
| Name | Kodo Family Residence, Main Building (幸道家住宅主屋, Kōdō-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) |
|---|---|
| Location | Tadokoro-cho 9, aza Kitakawaseyama 11, Sabae City, Fukui Prefecture (register); Sabae City lists Kowa 1-chome |
| Designation | National Registered Tangible Cultural Property (building), register no. 18-0069; criterion: contributes to the historical landscape of the country |
| Year Designated | Registered 23 October 2008 (Heisei 20); notified 10 November 2008 |
| Quantity | 1 structure |
| Dimensions | Timber frame, two storeys with single-storey portion, tiled roof; building footprint 185 sq m; approx. 6 ken 1 shaku by 4.5 ken; built Showa 12 (1937) |
| Owner | Privately held and privately managed; no owner recorded in the public register field |
| Public Access | Not open. Interior closed to the public; exterior visible from the public road only. Enquiries: Sabae City Cultural Properties Group, 0778-51-5999 |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Kodo-ke Jutaku Shuoku
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00007352
- Sabae City — Kodo Family Residence Main Building (register no. 18-0069)
- https://www.city.sabae.fukui.jp/kosodate_kyoiku/manabenoyakata/bunkazai/sabae_bunkazai/kenzoubutu/tourokuyuukei/18-0069-touroku.html
- Sabae City — Kodo Family Residence Detached Wing (register no. 18-0070)
- https://www.city.sabae.fukui.jp/kosodate_kyoiku/manabenoyakata/bunkazai/sabae_bunkazai/kenzoubutu/tourokuyuukei/18-0070-touroku.html
- Cultural Heritage Online — Kodo-ke Jutaku Shuoku
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/120224
Last verified: 2026.08.24