Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence

About the Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence

The Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence (瀬上嶋貫本家住宅, Senoue Shimanuki Honke Jūtaku) is the estate of the head branch of the Shimanuki family on the old Ōshū Kaidō highway in Senoue-machi, Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture, where five structures built between the early Meiji era and the 1920s, including the 1899 main house, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2013.

The first word is a place name, read Senoue rather than Segami. The family spells its surname 島貫 in ordinary use; by the family's own account, only the head house (honke) writes it 嶋貫, a convention kept within the Senoue clan to tell the main line from its branches.

Family tradition traces the Shimanuki back to retainers of the Uesugi clan who followed their lords to Niigata, Aizu and Yonezawa. Some time in the Edo period they gave up samurai status, moved to Shimoiizaka near Fukushima and later settled in Senoue. They traded as Kokuya, the grain house, lending money, brewing sake and running a pawnshop. When rice riots broke out, the story goes, they renamed the business Daikokuya so that crowds would not take them for rice merchants.

Land purchases turned the house into a major landlord working its fields with servants and tenant farmers. Post-war land reform stripped away most of those holdings, but the Meiji-era main house survived and was restored by the eleventh head of the family.

A Post Town Frontage

Senoue was a post town on the Ōshū Kaidō, the next stop north of Fukushima. The Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence turns its east side to the old road; the Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that the big gable of the main house faces the highway.

Read together, the agency's descriptions place the five structures fairly clearly. The front gate opens on the east side of the plot, just south of the main house, and the bunko storehouse stands south of the gate with its ridge running east to west. An earthen wall leaves the north-east corner of the main house, follows the road, then turns a right angle to enclose the garden, with a small gate set toward its south end. The annex sits behind the main house on the north side, toward the west.

Walking the old highway northward, you pass the storehouse, the front gate, the gable of the main house and then the wall and its gate: a continuous street front of storehouse, gate, house and wall. The registrations are split across three lot numbers: 90-2 and others for the house and annex, 90-8 for the gate and storehouse, and 90-4 for the wall.

The Five Registered Structures

All five parts of the Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence were registered on 24 December 2013 under consecutive numbers 07-0139 to 07-0143, each for its contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The national database gives the following dates and sizes.

• Main House: 1899. Two-storey timber building, 214 m²
• Annex: Taishō era (1912 to 1926). Two-storey timber building with a copper roof, 66 m²
• Bunko Storehouse: early Meiji era (1868 to 1882). Two-storey clay-walled storehouse with a tiled roof, 47 m²
• Front Gate: early Meiji era (1868 to 1882). Timber with a tiled roof, 2.3 m wide, with side walls and a wicket door
• Gate and Earthen Wall: mid-Meiji era (1883 to 1897). Gate 1.9 m wide, wall 13 m in total length

The order of building is worth noticing. The gate and storehouse facing the road are the oldest, the side gate and wall came next, the main house followed in 1899 and the annex in the Taishō years. The family seems to have secured its street front first and rebuilt the house and guest rooms behind it later. Each structure has its own page with construction details.

Visiting the Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence

The family opens the Senoue Shimanuki Main Family Residence to visitors to help pay for its upkeep, and every visit must be booked in advance. Reservations are taken by phone on 090-2273-5001 between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. A maintenance contribution of 500 yen per person serves as the admission fee. The house closes for winter (late November to the end of March) and for summer (August to early September), and for now only guided viewing is offered (official site, checked 1 October 2026).

Enter by the north gate; the official site states that the main east gate and the west gate are not used by visitors. There is parking for five cars behind the house. The site says nothing about photography, so ask when you book.

The nearest station is Fukushima-Gakuinmae on the Abukuma Express Line, two stops from Fukushima Station, about 400 metres in a straight line from the house. Closing periods and booking conditions can change, so check the official site before you go.