Kawai Family Villa

About the Kawai Family Villa

The Kawai Family Villa (河合家別邸, Kawai-ke Bettei) is a second residence built around 1941 in Ichinomachi, Furukawa-cho, Hida City, Gifu Prefecture, whose Sukiya-zukuri main house, Meiji-period storehouse, and gate and fence became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on August 13, 2012. It sits in the middle of the old town of Hida-Furukawa, a few minutes' walk from JR Hida-Furukawa Station.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the main house and the gate and fence to around 1941, and the storehouse to the middle Meiji period, between 1883 and 1897. The storehouse is therefore about half a century older than the house. The main house is planned as an H that wraps around this storehouse, which suggests the living quarters were built to enclose a storehouse already standing on the lot. Hida City's list of cultural properties gives the owner of all three as a private individual.

A Villa in the Furukawa Townscape

Ichinomachi is part of the center of Hida-Furukawa, and the street of white-walled storehouses along the Seto River lies within it. Hida City notes that the townscape was rebuilt after the great Furukawa fire of 1904, and that residents' care for the streetscape and the skill of local carpenters have shaped it ever since.

All three parts of the Kawai Family Villa were registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency describes the storehouse as forming a fine townhouse setting together with the main house, and credits the gate and fence with a calm presence that adds to the streetscape. The gate and fence are what tie the villa to the street.

How the Villa Is Laid Out

Taken together, the Agency's descriptions show a lot with the living quarters pushed to the back, on the north, and the street side to the south given over to a front garden behind a gate and fence.

• The main house stands on the north side of the lot. It is a single-storey timber building with a partial upper floor, roofed in metal sheet, with a footprint of 173 square meters. The northeast and southwest wings rise to 2 storeys under Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roofs, the rest is single-storey under Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable roofs, and the entrance on the southeast has a hip-and-gable roof of its own. The southwest wing has a veranda and windows turned toward the front garden.
• The storehouse stands at the center of the north side, its ridge running east to west. It is a 2-storey Dozo-zukuri building with a gabled Okiyane roof in metal sheet, 6.4 meters square and 40 square meters in footprint. Its door opens south, onto a corridor of the main house.
• The gate and fence run along the south side. The gate is a one-bay Udekimon set slightly back from the street, east of center, 2.9 meters wide. Board fencing bends away on either side of it for a total length of 41 meters.

The three were registered on the same day under the consecutive numbers 21-0201 to 21-0203. Gate, garden, the veranda of the main house and, at the core, the old storehouse: the layout unfolds in depth from the street, which suits a house kept as a villa.

Visiting the Kawai Family Villa

The Kawai Family Villa is privately owned and not open to the public. No open days or special viewings were found in the sources checked. The front garden inside the gate, the main house and the storehouse cannot be entered.

What can be seen from the street is the gate and the board fence along the south side. The main house stands back behind the front garden and the storehouse is enclosed by the house, so expect to see little of either from outside. Take photographs from the public road and do not stand in the gateway.

From Hida-Furukawa Station on the JR Takayama Line, the Kawai Family Villa is about 450 meters on foot, roughly 6 minutes. The white-walled storehouse street is about 5 minutes from the station as well, so the gate and fence are easy to pass on a walk through town.