Former Horikiri Family Residence

About the Former Horikiri Family Residence

The Former Horikiri Family Residence (旧堀切家住宅, Kyū Horikiri-ke Jūtaku) is the estate of the Horikiri, a family of wealthy landowners and merchants, in Iizaka-machi, Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture, where a main house rebuilt in 1881 and five other structures dating between the early Meiji era and about 1965 were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2020. Locally the estate goes by the name Kyu Horikiri-tei (旧堀切邸).

Fukushima City owns the Former Horikiri Family Residence and opened it in May 2010 as a visitor and community center for the Iizaka Onsen hot spring town. Surviving buildings were repaired and restored, and the gaps filled with new construction. The grounds cover about 4,000 square meters, and before 1880 the estate is said to have been more than twice that size.

The house stands on the right bank of the Surikami River, a short walk down a lane off Yumachi-dori, one of the old streets of Iizaka Onsen. Its front gate and a small library building face the lane together.

The Horikiri Family

According to the Kyu Horikiri-tei website, the family traces its start to 1578, when Umeyama Tarozaemon Sugawara no Haruyoshi left Wakasa Province and settled in Kami-Iizaka village, took the name Wakasa, and opened up about four chō (some 39,700 square meters) of farmland on an old river bed, raising rice and silkworms. The Akagawa stream flooded the village again and again, so he cut a new channel (hori o kiru) to divert it and turned the reclaimed ground into fields and house plots. The place came to be called Horikiri, and so did the family.

Under the Edo shogunate the Horikiri served as ōjōya, headmen over a group of villages. In 1800, while the area belonged to the Shirakawa domain, the domain lord Matsudaira Sadanobu visited Iizaka Onsen on a tour of inspection and stayed at the house for several days. He named its tea room Eikitei and wrote a framed name board for his host, as he recorded himself. The tea room is gone, but the board survives.

A fire in 1880 badly damaged the estate, and the main house of the Former Horikiri Family Residence was rebuilt the following year. Ryōhei, the 14th head, became the appointed village chief of Kami-Iizaka and five other villages in 1883. After a fire in 1888 that started in the Yumachi quarter and destroyed 173 houses, he spent his own money clearing the burned district. He went on to sit in the town, county and prefectural assemblies and joined Kōno Hironaka in the Freedom and People's Rights Movement.

His eldest son Zenbei, the 15th head, entered the House of Representatives in 1912 at the age of 30, won ten consecutive elections, and served as Speaker and as ambassador to Italy. The second son, Zenjirō, worked on rebuilding Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake and became mayor of Tokyo and Home Minister. The youngest, Kyūgorō, was also elected to the lower house. The library at the residence, the Agency for Cultural Affairs notes, was built by the 17th head as a book room and study for his work as a lawyer.

The Six Registered Buildings and the Layout

All six parts of the Former Horikiri Family Residence were registered on 3 April 2020, under consecutive numbers 07-0231 to 07-0236. The main house was registered as a model of architectural form; the other five were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency's database gives the following dates and sizes.

• Main house: 1881. Wooden, single story, slate roof, building area 281 m²
• New storehouse: mid-Meiji era. Earthen-walled storehouse, two stories, tiled roof, building area 28 m²
• Middle storehouse: early Meiji era. Earthen-walled storehouse, two stories, tiled roof, building area 21 m²
• Tool storehouse: early Meiji era. Earthen-walled storehouse, two stories, tiled roof, building area 37 m²
• Library: about 1965. Wooden, single story, tiled roof, building area 11 m²
• Front gate: early Meiji era. Wooden, opening 2.6 m wide. The data field says tiled roof with a side wall; the commentary describes a gabled copper roof with a short wall on the south side

The main house sits on the west side of the grounds and faces south. The front gate opens in the west boundary, and the library, joined to the southwest corner of the main house by a corridor, faces the street together with the gate. North of the main house stand the new storehouse and the middle storehouse, with the tool storehouse to the northeast; corridors link the new and tool storehouses to the house as well. All three are gabled Dozo-zukuri storehouses with red pantiled roofs, built to one design, so the back of the estate reads as a single, orderly group.

Beyond the six registered buildings, the grounds hold the Jikkengura, a rice store said to date from 1775 and ten ken (about 18 meters) long, which Fukushima City designated as a cultural property in 2007, along with a well house, a newly built annex and hall, and free hot spring foot and hand baths. A zelkova in the garden is estimated to be more than 260 years old. Each building of the Former Horikiri Family Residence has its own page with details of its structure.

Visiting the Former Horikiri Family Residence

The Former Horikiri Family Residence is open daily as Kyu Horikiri-tei, 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., with free admission (checked October 2026; it closes on occasional days for fumigation and other work). The new, middle and tool storehouses hold displays on the family. Rooms in the main house and the newer hall are rented out to groups of five or more, so a room may be closed while a meeting or class is under way.

On Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., volunteer guides from the Kyu Horikiri-tei guides' association show visitors around at no charge, though they occasionally take a day off. Groups of ten or more are asked to apply in advance. Photo or video shoots with brought-in equipment, and photos intended for magazines or other media, need prior permission. The whole site is non-smoking, and visitors are asked not to bring pets.

From JR Fukushima Station, take the Fukushima Kotsu Iizaka Line, known locally as Ii-den, to the terminus at Iizaka Onsen Station. The ride takes about 23 minutes and the adult fare is 430 yen (as of October 2026). On foot, the station is 5 to 7 minutes away: Fukushima City gives 5 minutes, the Kyu Horikiri-tei website 7.

By car, the estate is 10 to 15 minutes from the Fukushima-Iizaka interchange on the Tohoku Expressway. The website lists the Wakabacho and former Iizaka branch office lots (both free, 4 minutes' walk) and the Paruse Iizaka lot (free, 6 minutes' walk). The Wakabacho lot is open 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and the branch office lot 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.; both are locked outside those hours.