Goto Family Residence

A merchant compound on the Gujo Kaido

The Goto Family Residence (後藤家住宅, Gotō-ke Jūtaku) is a merchant family's compound on the old Gujo Kaido road in Akutami, Gifu City, Gifu Prefecture, where 6 buildings ranging from a late-Edo storehouse to a gate and a former post office of 1937 were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on February 4, 2021.

The 6 registered buildings are the main house, the detached house, the former post office, the storehouse, the gate and the Jizo shelter, numbered consecutively from 21-0286 to 21-0291. All 6 were registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the main house as the modern home of a prominent merchant family, with carefully designed transoms and metal fittings, and singles out the former post office as a rare picture of the small post offices that once operated out of private houses.

The Gujo Kaido was an Edo-period highway that doubled as a pilgrims' route toward the sacred peak of Mount Haku. Prefectural excavations at the Akutami Machiya site have traced its early-modern roadbed through the district. The Goto Family Residence turns its face to that road, gathering a home, a storehouse and a post office behind a single frontage.

How the compound is laid out

The Goto Family Residence sits on the west side of the Gujo Kaido and faces east onto it. A gate opens in the middle of the east frontage, with the main house to its north and the former post office to its south. The gate is a single-bay Yakuimon with short flanking walls (Sodobei) running north and south, and it forms the formal entrance to the property.

The main house runs east to west under a gabled roof, with its entrance toward the east end of the south side. A garden lies to its west, and beyond it the detached house stands on a north-south axis, joined to the main house by a covered corridor. The storehouse sits south of the main house and west of the post office, and the tiny Jizo shelter stands near the southern end of the east frontage, southeast of the post office.

Read together, the plan is easy to follow: the gate, the post office and the Jizo shelter line the road, while the detached house with its tatami room and tea room is tucked away at the very back. The public face of the household looks onto the street; its private rooms withdraw behind it.

Six buildings, late Edo to early Showa

The oldest building is the storehouse, dated by the Agency to the late Edo period. The official description values it as a survivor of the townscape from before the Nobi earthquake of 1891. The Jizo shelter dates from the early Meiji era and was moved to its present spot in 1965.

The main house was built in 1895, just 4 years after the earthquake. The detached house, with its refined sukiya-style detailing, dates from the early Taisho era and was moved here in 1970.

The gate and the former post office were both built in 1937, and together they form the side of the property that passers-by see today. Keeping a late-Edo storehouse while adding, moving and replacing buildings through the Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras, the Goto family left a compound whose layers can be read in its dates.

Visiting

The Goto Family Residence is a privately owned home. The grounds and interiors are not open to visitors, and no public opening days had been announced as of October 2026.

From the road, what can be seen is likely limited to the east side of the compound: the gate and its flanking walls, the east front of the former post office just south of the gate, and the Jizo shelter near the southeast corner. The main house, storehouse and detached house lie behind the gate and walls. Please look from the street without lingering at the gate or peering over walls, and if you take photos, keep clear of residents and traffic.

Getting there

Akutami lies about 9 km east-northeast of JR Gifu Station in a straight line. Gifu Bus runs services from JR Gifu Station toward Akutami; check routes and frequencies before you go. As this is not a visitor facility, there is no parking for visitors.