Takinami Family Residence

About the Takinami Family Residence

The Takinami Family Residence (瀧波家住宅, Takinami-ke Jūtaku) is a merchant's estate on the old Hokuriku Kaidō highway in Honmachi 3-chome, Sabae City, Fukui Prefecture, whose four buildings, a main house, a large storehouse and a tool storehouse built around 1887 and a detached room from the early Showa period, were registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on March 29, 2013.

The first character of the family name, 瀧, is the older form of 滝, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs gives the reading as Takinami. The main house turns its face east to the highway. Behind it lies a courtyard, and beyond that, to the rear and the north, stand the detached room and two clay-walled storehouses. In its note on the detached room, the Agency calls the whole arrangement a merchant household compound, and Sabae City values the main house as a fine example of a high-grade modern Machiya townhouse in Sabae.

Four Buildings Running Back from the Highway

Read together, the Agency's database entries place and size the four buildings of the Takinami Family Residence as follows.

• The main house faces east onto the old Hokuriku Kaidō. It is a two-storey timber building of 172 square meters, built around 1887, with Degeta-zukuri projecting eaves on both floors and Degōshi latticed bays across the front.
• The large storehouse stands north of the main house with its ridge running east to west. It is a two-storey Dozo-zukuri building of 80 square meters, 15.2 meters long, and dates from the same period, around 1887.
• The tool storehouse sits between the detached room and the large storehouse with its ridge running north to south. It is a smaller two-storey storehouse of 31 square meters, also from around 1887.
• The detached room stands behind the main house across the courtyard. It is a single-storey timber building of 51 square meters with a connecting corridor, dated by the Agency to the early Showa period.

A shopfront house on the street with reception rooms and storehouses behind it was the usual pattern for merchants along Japan's old highways. Both storehouses here have Shikkui lime-plastered walls with stone facing at the base, so the light, latticed front of the main house gives way to heavy white walls at the back of the lot.

Sabae City adds that the detached room was moved here from another site, was known as Rakushōtei, and served as lodgings for successive commanders of the 36th Infantry Regiment once stationed in Sabae. The city dates it more broadly, from the Meiji era to the early Showa period.

Registration of the Takinami Family Residence

All four buildings of the Takinami Family Residence were added to the register on March 29, 2013, in the 74th round of registrations. Their registration numbers run in sequence: 18-0113 for the main house, 18-0114 for the detached room, 18-0115 for the large storehouse and 18-0116 for the tool storehouse. Each was registered under the criterion that it contributes to the historic landscape of the country.

The owner field in the Agency's database is blank, while Sabae City lists the manager of all four buildings as a private individual. As of the end of April 2026 the city had 42 nationally registered cultural properties, four of which belong to the Takinami Family Residence.

Visiting the Takinami Family Residence

The Takinami Family Residence is a private home, and Sabae City states that the interiors of all four buildings are closed to the public. No open days or special viewings have been announced. What visitors can see is mainly the front of the main house on the old Hokuriku Kaidō. The projecting eaves on both floors, the latticed bays and the short Udatsu firewalls at each end are easiest to take in from the opposite side of the street.

There is no published policy on photography, but this is a family's home, so stay off the property and keep to the public road.

The Takinami Family Residence is about a 7-minute walk (roughly 500 meters) east-northeast of Nishi-Sabae Station on the Fukui Railway Fukubu Line. From Sabae Station on the Hapi-Line Fukui, it is about 1 kilometer to the northwest, or a 15-minute walk. No visitor parking is offered.