Yabashi Family Residence Retirement House (Chikusetsuro)

The Oldest Building on the Estate

The Yabashi Family Residence Retirement House (Chikusetsuro) (矢橋家住宅隠居（竹雪廬）, Yabashi-ke Jūtaku Inkyo) is a single-storey retirement house built in 1805 on the old Nakasendō highway in Akasaka, Ogaki City, Gifu Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 1997.

An inkyo was where the head of a household moved once he had handed the family business and property to his heir. This one stands at the western end of the Yabashi estate, facing the highway, with the Front Gate between it and the Main House. It is a timber building of a single storey under a tiled roof, with a footprint of 78 square metres. The Agency for Cultural Affairs identifies it as the oldest building on the property, 28 years older than the Main House.

Its name, Chikusetsuro, is written with the characters for bamboo, snow and a modest dwelling. No published source we could find explains who chose the name or when.

A Townhouse Face on a Single Storey

Chikusetsuro was registered as a building that would be difficult to reproduce, a criterion applied on this estate only to it and to the Shoin. The Agency's reasoning is the quality of the materials and finishes throughout.

The street front is the clever part. The house has only one floor, yet its roof is built in two tiers, and the road side is fitted with senbon-gōshi, the fine vertical-slat lattice used on townhouses. From the street it holds its own beside 2-storey neighbours, keeping the line of the frontage unbroken.

Inside, according to the Agency's record, the space is divided into a number of small rooms. That is the opposite of the Shoin, which is laid out as broad connected reception rooms, and fits a building meant for a retired couple's daily life.

What to Look For from the Street

The Yabashi Family Residence Retirement House is one of 3 buildings on the estate that can be seen from the public road, along with the Main House and the Front Gate. Look first at the roof: a lower pent roof and the main roof above it are stepped one over the other, giving the outline of a taller building than the plan requires.

Then compare its lattice with the Main House's. By dressing the retirement house as a townhouse, the family made the whole estate front read as one continuous street elevation. Standing at this western end and looking east past the gate to the Main House gives a good sense of how wide the Yabashi frontage really is.

Visiting Chikusetsuro

The Yabashi Family Residence Retirement House (Chikusetsuro) is not open to the public, and the interior cannot be visited. Its facade can be seen from the road along the old Nakasendō.

Please take photographs only from the public road and do not look in through the lattice. There is no admission charge or booking system.