Heishi Family Residence Main House

A Silk Farmer's Great House

Heishi Family Residence Main House (瓶子家住宅主屋, Heishi-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a large farmhouse at Moriai in Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture, built in the early Meiji period between 1868 and 1882 and entered on the register of Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 29 November 2016. It stands at the centre of the Heishi family compound and measures 13 by 6 bays, a timber building of 2 storeys with a building area of 346 square metres.

The roof is an Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable form clad in sheet metal, with the entrance on the long side in the Hirairi manner. Along the ridge runs a Koshi-yane, a raised monitor roof that lets smoke and damp escape and light filter in. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the house to the early Meiji years with alterations in the early Showa period, so what stands today is a Meiji frame reworked in the 20th century.

Together with the gatehouse on the south side, the main house is the oldest building in the compound. Everything else at the Heishi Family Residence, from the Taishō annex to the storehouses behind it, was arranged around this house.

Why It Was Registered

Heishi Family Residence Main House is the only building in the compound registered as a model of form, the criterion reserved for structures valued for their design. The other five were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency describes the house as a rare surviving example of a large farmhouse in the region.

Some arithmetic helps. Taking a bay as 6 shaku, or roughly 1.8 metres, the long side works out at about 24 metres and the short side at around 11 metres. For a farmhouse, that is a very big footprint.

The interior explains why. According to the Agency's survey, almost no ceilings were fitted, not only over the earth-floored work area but over the raised living rooms as well, and the beams still carry the mounting marks of racks used for silkworm trays. With no ceilings, racks could hang from the beams and the whole volume up to the roof could be given over to the worms. The wide floor plate, the open interior and the ventilating monitor on the ridge most likely belong to one logic: a house built to raise silkworms as well as a family.

Those beam marks are the most concrete evidence of what the household did for a living. The Heishi main house was both home and workshop, and it is that combination the registration recognises.

What to Look For

Start with the roofline. A great hip-and-gable roof spans the 346-square-metre plan, and the monitor runs along its crest. The silhouette is what gives Heishi Family Residence Main House its presence, and the monitor is easy to pick out even at a distance.

The silkworm-rack marks are the building's own record of its past. Picture tier upon tier of trays slung between the exposed beams, with warm air rising to the monitor above. The interior is closed, though, so this is something to imagine rather than inspect.

Note too the two dates the Agency gives. The sheet-metal cladding may well belong to the later work rather than the original build. A house that records more than one period is a house that stayed in use and was repaired as needs changed.

Behind the main house, joined by a covered corridor, stands the early Taishō annex. The pairing of a big Meiji working farmhouse with a refined Taishō guest wing shows the family's circumstances shifting over a generation.

Visiting

Heishi Family Residence Main House is a private home and is not open to the public. Neither the Agency nor Fukushima City lists any open days or visit arrangements (checked 1 October 2026).

The house stands in the middle of the plot behind the gatehouse on the south side, so from outside expect to see little more than the upper part of the roof and its monitor above the gate. No notice prohibiting exterior photography could be found, but this is a lived-in property: do not aim a camera into the grounds for long, and do not enter.

Directions and general visiting conditions for the whole compound are on the Heishi Family Residence page.