A Viscount's House, Built in Tokyo and Rebuilt Twice in Numata
The Former Toki Family Residence Western Wing (旧土岐家住宅洋館, Kyu-Toki-ke Jutaku Yokan, also rendered Former Toki Family Residence Western-Style Building) is a wooden house of 1924 now standing at Uenomachi in Numata City, Gunma Prefecture, and it was entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 5 November 1997.
The house was not built here. It was built in Shibuya, Tokyo, for Viscount Toki Akira, and it came to Numata because of a debt of association that is nearly three centuries old.
The Toki were a branch of the Minamoto claiming descent from Emperor Seiwa, and under the Tokugawa they supplied the shogunate with senior officers: keepers of Osaka Castle, deputies in Kyoto, senior councillors. Toki Yoritoshi took over the Numata domain in 1742, succeeding the Kuroda, and his line governed the Tone-Numata district for 129 years until the twelfth lord, Yoritomo, saw the domains abolished in 1871. The family left for Tokyo and were made viscounts under the new peerage.
Three generations later, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 pushed Viscount Toki Akira out of his existing residence. The building he put up in Shibuya the following year was the principal block of the new house. In 1989 his descendant offered it to Numata, and in August 1990 it was dismantled, carried north, and rebuilt inside Numata Park, where it served as a local history museum. Age caught up with it again. Dismantling began in 2018, and in March 2020 the house was reassembled a third time, on Honmachi-dori in the city centre.
Why It Was Registered
The register lists the house under the criterion for buildings that set a model in design, and the reasoning turns on what the 1920s did to the domestic architecture of wealthy Japanese households.
By the Taisho period a large residence for a family of this rank was expected to include a Western block for receiving guests. Most such blocks copied English or French models. This one looks to Germany, in the idiom of a suburban villa outside a German city, an idiom that circulated in Japan from the end of Taisho into early Showa but left comparatively few surviving examples.
What holds the registration together is that the house is neither purely Western nor a token gesture. The exterior commits fully to the imported manner. The interior does something more interesting, which the next section takes up.
One caution on the figures. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database records the structure as wooden, three storeys, slate roof, building area 119 square metres. Numata City publishes the building as wooden, two storeys, natural slate roof, building area 221.77 square metres. The gap most likely reflects how the attic storey and the post-relocation footprint were counted, and both figures appear in this article's data table.
What to Look For
Start outside and look up. Set into the steep roof slope is a round dormer, the type known in French as an oeil-de-boeuf and in Japanese by the direct translation ushi-no-me mado, an ox-eye window. Numata's cultural properties office treats that window, read together with the German-style wall finish on the ground floor, as the essential expression of the building's style. Below it the walls use German siding, and the openings include arched windows.
Then go in, because the interior is where the house stops being a European quotation. A Western reception room occupies the ground floor, panelled and fitted with a fireplace, and there is a Japanese reception room as well, floored with tatami. Two rooms, two ways of receiving a visitor, in one building. Nothing about this was unusual for a titled family in the 1920s, and few houses that made the arrangement so plainly are left to look at.
The house is open to visitors from 9:30 to 17:00, with final admission at 16:30. It closes on Wednesdays, on the day following a public holiday, and from 29 December to 3 January. Admission is 110 yen for adults, 60 yen per person for groups of twenty or more, and free for junior high school students and younger; holders of a disability certificate and one accompanying person are also admitted free. Enquiries go to the Ubukata Memorial Library next door on 0278-22-3110. Photography for personal purposes needs no application. Commercial shoots, and filming for newspapers, magazines, television or printed publicity, require permission in advance.
Give yourself an hour and see the neighbours. The relocation in 2020 was part of a city project, completed in 2024, that gathered four buildings of the late Meiji and Taisho years onto adjacent plots as a Taisho Roman quarter: the former Numata Savings Bank of about 1908, designated by the prefecture; this house; the Former Numata Church Memorial Hall of 1914; and the former Kume Family Residence Western Wing of the 1910s, moved from Tokyo and notable as one of the earliest concrete houses built in Japan. Numata Park, with the site of Numata Castle and the Former Ubukata Family Residence, an Important Cultural Property, lies about fifteen minutes on foot.
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Q&A
- What are the opening hours and admission fee for the Former Toki Family Residence Western Wing?
- Open 9:30 to 17:00, last admission 16:30. Closed Wednesdays, or Thursday when Wednesday falls on a public holiday, on the day after a public holiday, and from 29 December to 3 January. Adults pay 110 yen, groups of twenty or more 60 yen each, and junior high school students and younger enter free.
- How do I get to the Former Toki Family Residence Western Wing?
- The address is 1160-1 Uenomachi, Numata City. From Numata Station on the JR Joetsu Line it is roughly a twenty minute walk, or about seven minutes by bus to the Uenomachi stop and one minute on foot from there. Drivers can leave the Kan-etsu Expressway at Numata IC, around eight minutes away, and use the Tengu Plaza car park.
- Was the Former Toki Family Residence Western Wing always in Numata?
- No. It was built in Shibuya, Tokyo, in 1924. The Toki family donated it to Numata, with which they had a long connection as lords of the domain, and it was moved to Numata Park in 1990. It was dismantled again in 2018 for repair and reassembled at its present site in Uenomachi in March 2020.
- Can I take photographs inside the Former Toki Family Residence Western Wing?
- Personal photography requires no application. Photography for commercial use, including studio work, and shooting for newspapers, magazines, television, pamphlets or flyers, requires a permit obtained from the city in advance.
- What else is worth seeing near the Former Toki Family Residence Western Wing?
- Three more historic buildings stand within a couple of minutes: the former Numata Savings Bank, the Former Numata Church Memorial Hall, and the former Kume Family Residence Western Wing. Together they form the Taisho Roman quarter completed in 2024. Numata Park and the castle site are about fifteen minutes away on foot.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Toki Family Residence Western Wing (旧土岐家住宅洋館) |
|---|---|
| Location | 1160-1 Uenomachi, Numata City, Gunma Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), register no. 10-0022 |
| Year Designated | Registered 5 November 1997 (gazetted 3 December 1997) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Agency for Cultural Affairs: wooden, three storeys, slate roof, building area 119 m². Numata City: wooden, two storeys, natural slate roof, building area 221.77 m². Built 1924. |
| Owner | Numata City |
| Public Access | Open 9:30 to 17:00 (last admission 16:30). Closed Wednesdays, the day after public holidays, and 29 December to 3 January. Adults 110 yen; junior high school age and younger free. |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Former Toki Family Residence Western Wing
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00000343
- Cultural Heritage Online — Former Toki Family Residence Western Wing
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/180253
- Numata City Board of Education — Former Toki Family Residence Western Wing
- https://www.city.numata.gunma.jp/kyouiku/bunkazai/ichiran/yukei/1000886.html
- Numata City — Visitor Information for the Former Toki Family Residence Western Wing
- https://www.city.numata.gunma.jp/kanko/bunka/1010166/1001836.html
- Numata City Tourism Association — Taisho Roman Numata
- https://www.numata-kankou.jp/taisho_roman/
Last verified: 2026.08.08