Amano Family Residence

About the Amano Family Residence

The Amano Family Residence (天野家住宅, Amano-ke Jūtaku) is the estate of an old landholding family in Mimigai, Odaka Ward, Minamisoma City, Fukushima Prefecture, where six structures built between the early Meiji era and 1927, from the main house and two storehouses to the gates and walls, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2018.

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Amano family served as kimoiri, a village headman, on the outskirts of the old town of Odaka. The hamlet the estate stands in, Momouchi, also gives its name to the nearest station on the JR Joban Line.

When the national Council for Cultural Affairs recommended the registration on 20 July 2018, it judged the estate as a whole rather than building by building. Its summary calls the main house a fine, imposing example of modern Japanese-style domestic architecture, and credits the two storehouses on the front stone wall, the granite gate and the concrete walls with giving the large property a formal, solid street front.

The Six Registered Structures

All six parts of the Amano Family Residence were entered on the register as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 2 November 2018, under registration numbers 07-0202 to 07-0207. Each was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The national database gives these dates and sizes:

• Main House: built 1911, altered 1927. Timber, two storeys with a single-storey wing, tiled roof, building area 234 m²
• Rice Storehouse: 1926. Two-storey clay-walled storehouse, tiled roof, building area 57 m²
• West Storehouse: early Meiji era (about 1868 to 1882), altered in the early Showa era. Two-storey clay-walled storehouse, tiled roof, building area 39 m²
• Outdoor Toilet: early Taisho era (about 1912 to 1918). Timber, single storey, tiled roof, building area 5.6 m²
• Main Gate: 1927. Granite, 3 m high, 3.2 m wide, with a side gate on each flank
• Side Gate, Rear Gate and Wall: 1927. Reinforced concrete; side gate 2.8 m wide, rear gate 2.1 m wide, wall 100 m in total length

The oldest building is the West Storehouse. The main house followed in 1911 and the outdoor toilet a few years later.

Then came a burst of work. The Rice Storehouse went up in 1926, and in 1927 the family added the stone gate and the concrete walls with their two smaller gates, and altered the main house as well. Within two years the whole front of the Amano Family Residence was rebuilt, and what a passer-by sees today is largely the result.

How the Amano Family Residence Is Laid Out

The main house stands in the middle of the plot and faces south. A reinforced concrete wall runs along the south and east boundaries. The Main Gate sits at the centre of the south side, the side gate at its western end, and the rear gate at the northern end of the east side.

A short ramp cut into the south side of the plot leads up to the Main Gate. On the stone retaining wall along the front, the Rice Storehouse holds the south-east corner and the West Storehouse stands toward the west. Both storehouses open to the north, into the yard, rather than toward the road.

The outdoor toilet is in the north-east part of the grounds, east of the main house, facing west. The 2018 summary picks it out as a small outbuilding finished with sukiya-style refinement.

Seen from the south, the Amano Family Residence presents a single line of stone wall, concrete wall, gate and two storehouses, with the hipped-and-gabled roof of the main house rising behind. That southern elevation is the formal front the Council described. The pages for each structure cover construction and details.

Visiting the Amano Family Residence

The Amano Family Residence is a private home and is not open to the public. Minamisoma City's 2020 list of cultural properties records all six structures as privately owned. Visitors cannot enter the grounds, and no open days or special viewings had been announced as of October 2026. Any viewing is from outside the property, and photographs should be taken from the public road only.

The nearest station is Momouchi on the JR Joban Line. According to the JR East timetable as of October 2026, 11 trains a day stop there in each direction, toward Haranomachi and Sendai and toward Iwaki and Mito, with gaps of more than two hours around midday. Check the return train before setting out.

We could not confirm the walking route or time from the station to the Amano Family Residence from published sources, and no visitor parking is advertised.