Kawabata Family Residence

A Silk-Era Estate on the Old Nakasendo

The Kawabata Family Residence (川端家住宅, Kawabata-ke Jūtaku) is a wealthy farming family's estate on the old Nakasendo highway in Tateishishinden, Fujioka City, Gunma Prefecture, whose 19 buildings, dating from the late Edo period to 1935, were entered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 24 April 2001. The owner is Kawabata Hozensha.

Tateishishinden grew up as a strip settlement, its houses lined along the old road that once linked Edo with Kyoto through the mountains. The Kawabata were the leading farmers here, and locals once called their compound the itchō yashiki, a name that points to the sheer size of the plot.

According to the owners' website, the Karasu River, a tributary of the Tone, runs just behind the property. Two buildings form its core: the Main House, where the family lived, and the Villa, built for receiving guests. Gates, storehouses, sheds and walls ring them on every side.

How Silk Built the Kawabata Family Residence

The oldest fabric at the Kawabata Family Residence is the frame of the Main House, which the Agency for Cultural Affairs identifies as a late Edo farmhouse. The earth-floored end facing the highway was raised to two storeys around the early Meiji period.

The big change came in the middle Meiji years. The Agency links the Villa to the period when the family grew rich through the raw-silk trade, and dates the Great Gate, the two grain storehouses, the Rear Storehouse and the Pawn Storehouse to roughly the same time. The Miso Storehouse and the Storage Shed are thought to be a little older, from the early Meiji period.

The owners' website names the head of the family in those years as Kawabata Saizaburō (1854–1916) and suggests he prospered by moving silk to domestic and overseas markets. It notes that his name appears among donors to a museum planned in 1900 to celebrate the marriage of the Crown Prince, the future Emperor Taishō; that building is today's Hyokeikan at the Tokyo National Museum. In the time of his adopted heir (1883–1942), the family took part in founding the Jōshū Bank. The site is candid that the details of the business have never been properly researched.

A flood in 1910 badly damaged the South Wall and the West Wall. The Agency records that both were rebuilt in their original form, and the owners' website shows a photograph of Saizaburō directing the repairs.

In 1935 the estate gained its sukiya-style Middle Gate, two inner walls, and the Bathhouse and Well House beside the Main House. With the front garden now screened off from the inner garden, the layout visitors see today was essentially complete. The owners' website, however, dates the Middle Gate and inner walls to around 1939, four years later than the Agency's registration record.

The estate later fell into disrepair. Since the 1980s, over more than 40 years, the present occupants, one of whom is a Kawabata descendant, have restored the Main House and the gardens. The Main House is still lived in.

Nineteen Registrations, Two Criteria

All 19 buildings of the Kawabata Family Residence were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on the same day, 24 April 2001, with official notice following on 15 May 2001. Their registration numbers run without a break from 10-0059 (the Main House) to 10-0077 (the South Inner Wall), and Fujioka City lists them as a single entry, "Kawabata Family Residence, 19 buildings."

Two different criteria were applied. Ten buildings were judged to be "a model of form": the Main House, the Villa, the Rear Storehouse, the Pawn Storehouse, the Bathhouse, the Well House, the Inari Shrine, the Middle Gate, the East Inner Wall and the South Inner Wall. The other nine were judged to "contribute to the historic landscape": the Great Gate, the East and South Grain Storehouses, the Head Clerk's Room, the Miso Storehouse, the Storage Shed, the Woodshed, the South Wall and the West Wall.

The split follows the plan of the estate. Most of the gates, storehouses and walls that draw its outer edge fall on the landscape side, while the living, entertaining and worship buildings, together with the 1935 gate and walls, fall on the design side. Size was not the test. A shed for timber thinned from the grounds made the list, and so did a Bathhouse with a footprint of just 9.9 square meters, which the Agency calls one of the few surviving records of how daily life was arranged here.

Layout of the Kawabata Family Residence

The formal entrance to the Kawabata Family Residence is the Great Gate on the east side of the plot. Approaching from outside, the Head Clerk's Room stands to the right and the East Grain Storehouse to the left, so that the gate sits between them. North of the Head Clerk's Room come the Miso Storehouse and then, midway along the east side, the Storage Shed, forming an almost continuous wall of storehouse and shed fronts.

On the south side, the long South Grain Storehouse fills the eastern half and the South Wall the western half, closing the estate off from the old road. Along the west run the Rear Storehouse in the southwest corner, the Pawn Storehouse behind it and the Woodshed further north, with the West Wall marking the boundary. The Inari Shrine, the family's own guardian shrine, sits in the southwest corner of the grounds.

The Great Gate opens onto a forecourt. The owners' website describes the view from there: the Main House straight ahead across a water basin, and the Villa glimpsed to the right through the Middle Gate. The Main House occupies the southern part of the plot, with the Bathhouse and Well House behind its earth-floored section to the west. The Middle Gate faces the Villa's entrance, and the East and South Inner Walls separate the forecourt from the inner garden, where the Villa stands near the center of the grounds.

Visiting the Kawabata Family Residence

The Kawabata Family Residence is a private home that is still lived in, and it is not open to the public. The owners' website says the estate can be booked, by reservation only, for filming (film, television, commercials, magazines), events such as wedding photography, tea gatherings and concerts, and corporate training or receptions. Enquiries go through the contact details on that site.

Two gates and a double line of walls screen the buildings, and the website notes that even local people knew little of what lay inside. There is no entry beyond the gate without a booking, so anyone passing by should be mindful of the neighbors.

The nearest station is Shinmachi on the JR Takasaki Line, about 1.5 kilometers away, or roughly a 20-minute walk. Terms and fees for use may change, so check the official website before planning a visit.