Matsumura Family Residence (Fukuoka)

About the Matsumura Family Residence in Fukuoka

The Matsumura Family Residence (松村家住宅, Matsumura-ke Jūtaku) is a house built in 1936 in Daimyo 2-chome, Chuo Ward, Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, and its four structures (the main house, a Western-style house, a storehouse, and a gate with its wall) were entered on Japan's register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on March 26, 2015. Today the house goes by the name Shōnankyo (松楠居, also written Shonankyo).

It was built as the home of Matsumura Hisakichi, third head of Jokyu, a soy sauce brewery that still makes soy sauce in Daimyo. The business was founded in 1855 as Kusunokiya Shoyu, taking its name from the Matsumura family's trade name, Kusunokiya, and switched to the Jokyu brand in the late Meiji period. According to a venue profile published by Fukuoka Tenjin University, the name Shōnankyo joins the first character of Matsumura (松, pine) with the first character of Kusunokiya (楠, camphor tree).

Daimyo, one street back from Tenjin's Nishi-dori, is a dense quarter of vintage clothing stores and small commercial buildings. The Matsumura Family Residence holds its ground there as a complete prewar townhouse: a tiled two-story main house set back behind a compact Western-style parlor, a gate and a low wall, all on one frontage.

A House on a Filled-In Castle Moat

Daimyo was part of the castle town east of Fukuoka Castle. Jokyu explains that the district lies south of the Konyamachi moat, the middle moat that once ran from the castle toward the Naka River. The Matsumura Family Residence stands on land reclaimed when that moat was filled in, directly north of the Jokyu brewery across a narrow street. The Agency for Cultural Affairs opens its description of the main house by noting that the plot was once part of Fukuoka Castle's middle moat.

On the same day in 2015, seven Jokyu brewery buildings on the south side of the street were also registered. The brewery and the brewer's home face each other across a single lane, and both are now on the national register.

The Four Registered Structures and Their Designers

All four structures of the Matsumura Family Residence date from 1936. They were registered in the 80th round of registrations under numbers 40-0115 to 40-0118, each on the ground that it contributes to the historic landscape of the country.

• Main house: timber, two stories, tiled roof, building area 163 square meters
• Western-style house: timber, one story, tiled roof, building area 17 square meters
• Storehouse: Dozo-zukuri earthen-walled construction, tiled roof, building area 12 square meters
• Gate and wall: a timber gate with a tiled roof and a 2.0-meter opening, and a concrete-block wall 8.8 meters long in total

The Agency credits the design of the main house to the Jutaku Kairyokai (住宅改良会, Housing Improvement Society). The society was founded by Hashiguchi Shinsuke, owner of the house builder Amerikaya, and from August 1916 to December 1943 it published a magazine, Jutaku (住宅, The House), campaigning for better middle-class homes. Jokyu describes the Matsumura Family Residence as a clear example of an early Showa house that pairs Japanese living rooms with a separate Western parlor: plenty of bay windows, and a parlor tied into the gate and wall so that the whole frontage reads well from the street.

How the Matsumura Estate Is Laid Out

Pieced together from the Agency's descriptions, the Matsumura Family Residence is closed off on the south by the gate and wall. The Western-style house sits right on the street, with the main house behind it to the north. The storehouse occupies the northwest corner, running north to south, and is reached from the kitchen door of the main house across a small courtyard garden. The main house keeps its kitchen and bathing rooms in a separate wing linked by a covered corridor.

From the street you see three of the four: the gate, the wall and the Western-style house, whose outer walls share the same rough-textured mortar finish as the wall. The main house is set back inside the wall, and the storehouse is tucked away at the rear. Each building has its own page with details of construction and what to look for.

Earthquake Damage, Reuse and the Two Addresses

The venue profile says the Matsumura Family Residence came through the war unscathed but was damaged in the 2005 earthquake off western Fukuoka. Apart from earthquake repairs, alterations were kept to a minimum, and from the summer of 2010 the house was put back into use as Shōnankyo. The same earthquake brought down half of the brick chimney at the Jokyu brewery.

The Agency's database gives the location as Daimyo 2-127, which is the land lot number. Shōnankyo itself uses the postal address, 2-1-16 Daimyo, which is the one to type into a map app. Other houses called the Matsumura Family Residence exist elsewhere in Japan, including Habikino in Osaka Prefecture; they belong to different families.

Visiting the Matsumura Family Residence

The ground floor of the Matsumura Family Residence main house is let to a restaurant, and the upper floor has been used for exhibitions and events (checked September 2026). The interior can be seen only while the restaurant is open or when an event is being held. The owner is Shoson (有限会社ショーソン), a Jokyu affiliate that runs Shōnankyo. No public opening of the Western-style house or the storehouse has been announced.

The gate, the wall and the Western-style house all face the street, so the exterior can be viewed from the road at any time. There is no official guidance on photography; if you want to take pictures indoors, ask the staff first.

The nearest station is Nishitetsu Fukuoka (Tenjin) on the Nishitetsu Tenjin Omuta Line, about 8 minutes on foot. The Daimyo Nichome stop on Nishitetsu buses is about 2 minutes away, and Tenjin and Akasaka stations on the Kuko subway line are each a walk of 10 minutes or so. No dedicated parking is advertised.