Kurakazu Family Residence

What Is the Kurakazu Family Residence?

The Kurakazu Family Residence (倉員家住宅, Kurakazu-ke Jūtaku) is a Meiji-period landowner's homestead in Kitakawauchi, Joyo-machi, Yame City, Fukuoka Prefecture, whose four buildings, dating from an 1876 barn to a 1909 annex, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan in 2018.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the Kurakazu Family Residence as the home of a landowning family at the heart of the former Kitakawauchi village. Joyo-machi (上陽町, Jōyō-machi), the district name, lies east of central Yame, and the city lists the property under its Joyo area as four registered buildings.

The Four Registered Buildings of the Kurakazu Family Residence

All four buildings of the Kurakazu Family Residence were registered together on November 2, 2018, under the consecutive registration numbers 40-0155 to 40-0158. Each was recognized for its contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives these dates and sizes:

• Main House: 1885, remodeled around 1967. Wood, two storeys with a single-storey section, tiled roof, building area 300 m²
• Annex: 1909, remodeled in 1988. Wood, one storey, tiled roof, building area 97 m²
• Storehouse: 1891. Two-storey dozo storehouse, tiled roof, building area 51 m²
• Barn: 1876. Wood, two storeys, tiled roof, building area 51 m²

Put in order of construction, the sequence runs barn, main house, storehouse, annex. The oldest building is not the house but the barn, nine years older than the main house, and the compound took about 33 years to reach its present four buildings.

The database also records Showa-era remodeling of the main house and the annex, a reminder that this is a home the family has kept adapting while holding on to its Meiji frame.

How the Kurakazu Family Residence Is Laid Out

At the center of the Kurakazu Family Residence stands the main house, facing south. Behind it, at the north end of the lot, the annex also faces south and joins the main house through a Tsunoya wing. Its floor structure reaches out over the Ishigaki stone wall along the back of the site.

A second stone wall runs along the south side, and on top of it the storehouse faces north. The barn stands in front of the storehouse, also facing north. Together the storehouse and barn face the main house and close off its front yard from the south, an arrangement the Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out as typical of a traditional farmstead.

Living quarters to the north, storage and work buildings to the south, an open yard between them: the plan of the Kurakazu Family Residence shows how a well-to-do Meiji farming household divided its compound. Each building has its own page with details of its construction.

Visiting the Kurakazu Family Residence

The Kurakazu Family Residence is a privately owned home. Neither the Agency for Cultural Affairs database nor Yame City's list of cultural properties mentions open days or visits, and the grounds and interiors are not open to the public. If you go, stay outside the property and look from a distance, and be considerate of the people who live there when taking photos.

To reach Kitakawauchi, take the Horikawa Bus Hoshino Line from the Fukushima stop in central Yame; the timetable shows about 22 minutes to the Kitakawauchi stop, and some Hoshino Line buses start from Hainuzuka Station on the JR Kagoshima Main Line. The address of the Kurakazu Family Residence is 1016 Sakaguchiyama, Kitakawauchi, but the route and walking time from the bus stop could not be confirmed from published sources (checked October 1, 2026).