Minamikubota Family Residence

What Is the Minamikubota Family Residence?

The Minamikubota Family Residence (南久保田家住宅, Minami-Kubota-ke Jūtaku) is the estate of a family whose line goes back to the Edo period, in Fukunaga, Yoshii-cho, Ukiha City, Fukuoka Prefecture; eight of its structures, a main house with storehouses, farm buildings and gates built between the early Meiji period and 1935, became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 23 February 2012.

Walls and the trees of an old estate grove enclose the grounds. Ukiha City's tourism site points to more than the buildings: the grove with its huge camphor tree, the water channels that run past the houses, and the carefully clipped hedges. The estate belongs to the Kubota family, who told the city they asked for registration because they want the house their forebears built with such care to pass to their children and grandchildren.

The same site describes the architecture as layered. The plan of a wealthy early-modern farming household is kept, but the buildings also borrow from the townhouse (machiya) style that took shape in Yoshii in the late Edo and early Meiji years, and from the modern Japanese-style design of the Meiji and Taisho eras. Construction at the Minamikubota Family Residence spans more than 60 years, early Meiji storehouse to early Showa warehouse.

Eight Registrations on One Estate

All eight buildings of the Minamikubota Family Residence were entered on the national register together on 23 February 2012, in the 72nd round of registrations, each as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives these dates and sizes:

• Main House: 1915, timber, single-storey with part 2-storey, building area 427 square meters
• Old Storehouse: early Meiji period (1868 to 1882), 2-storey timber, 38 square meters
• Rice Storehouse: 1899, timber, single-storey with part 2-storey, 69 square meters
• Tsukiatari Storehouse: late Taisho period (1919 to 1926), 2-storey timber, 56 square meters
• Agricultural Warehouse: 1935, 2-storey timber, 89 square meters
• Miso Room: early Taisho period (1912 to 1918), single-storey timber, 27 square meters
• Lumber Shed and Side Gate: around 1915, single-storey timber, 23.5 meters long, 44 square meters
• Rear Gate: around 1915, single-storey timber, 11 square meters

Every roof is tiled. Only the main house has a hip-and-gable Irimoya-zukuri roof; the other seven are simple gabled Kirizuma-zukuri buildings roofed in Sangawara-buki pantiles, and their walls alternate between white Shikkui plaster and plain timber boarding.

Ukiha City's article dates the recommendation of the national advisory council to 9 December 2011. Where it lists the buildings, it leaves out the old storehouse, but the Agency database confirms that the old storehouse is one of the eight registered as part of the Minamikubota Family Residence.

How the Estate Is Laid Out

At the Minamikubota Family Residence the main house stands in the middle of the lot and faces east. The storehouses gather on the west side. The rice storehouse fills the northwest corner with the old storehouse just east of it, and south of the rice storehouse a line of buildings continues past the Tsukiatari Storehouse to the agricultural warehouse in the southwest corner.

A water channel runs along the south side of the main house, and the little miso room stands beside it with its door turned north, toward the earth-floored Doma of the house. Southwest of the main house, next to the agricultural warehouse, is the rear gate. On the southeast side a small room is built onto the corner of the main house, a side gate opens east of it, and the lumber shed turns a right angle from there. Its plastered face looks onto the front garden and is part of the formal front of the estate.

The old storehouse appears on a kasōzu dated 1895, a plan of the household drawn with an eye to auspicious and inauspicious directions. It shows that the storehouse was already standing by the middle of the Meiji period, and the Agency notes that it conveys the estate as it was at that time.

Visiting and Getting There

The Minamikubota Family Residence is a private home and is not open to the public; Ukiha City's tourism site also lists it as closed. Most of the buildings sit behind the walls and grove, so please stay on the road and do not enter the grounds. For enquiries, the tourism site gives the Lifelong Learning Division of the Ukiha City Board of Education (0943-75-3343).

The nearest station is Chikugo-Yoshii on the JR Kyūdai Main Line. The Minamikubota Family Residence lies about 1.7 km northeast of the station in a straight line, roughly a 30-minute walk. We found no information about parking for visitors.