The Former Fukui Family Residence
The Former Fukui Family Residence (旧福井家住宅) in Higashitsuchidocho, Onomichi City, Hiroshima Prefecture, is a house built in stages between 1912 and 1928, and its main house, tea room and storehouse were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (structures) on November 8, 2004 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). All three were registered as models of design.
The residence faces south on a slope above the Onomichi Channel, the narrow strait in front of the town (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The main house is finely built, mostly of Japanese cypress with prized woods such as maple and ironwood (tagayasan), and finished in an elegant sukiya style; the tea room and storehouse share its careful workmanship.
Three Linked Buildings
The main house has two wings: an east wing of 1912 under a hipped roof and a west wing added in 1927 under a hip-and-gable roof, joined at an entrance near the middle (Agency for Cultural Affairs).
A tea room of 1928 is attached to the northwest corner of the west wing, with a four-and-a-half-mat tea room and a waiting room across a corridor. North of the west wing stands a 2-storey earthen-walled storehouse of about 1912, its front room running into the main house (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The three buildings form one connected residence centred on the main house. Each building is described on its own page.
A Home for Onomichi's Writers
The house served as Onomichi City's Literature Memorial Room, according to a paper in the research reports of the Chugoku Chapter of the Architectural Institute of Japan. The paper says that in 1999 it became one of the four facilities of the Onomichi Houses of Literature, with the former residences of the novelist Shiga Naoya and the poet Nakamura Kenkichi and the Onomichi Literary Park, and that material associated with the novelist Hayashi Fumiko was moved here.
The Literature Memorial Room closed at the end of March 2020, together with Shiga Naoya's former residence, because of falling visitor numbers (same paper). Onomichi City's page on its literary sites, updated in May 2023, gives visiting information only for the Literary Park and Nakamura Kenkichi's former residence.
Visiting
No official notice of the house reopening to the public after the museum closed was found.
The Agency's records give the location as 163-1 and other lots in Higashitsuchidocho; the street address used for the Literature Memorial Room was 13-28 Higashitsuchidocho (Hiroshima International Center facility guide, 2015). The same guide put it 15 minutes on foot from JR Onomichi Station on the Sanyo Main Line.
References
- Former Fukui Family Residence Main House (Database of National Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004411
- Former Fukui Family Residence Tea Room (Database of National Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004412
- Former Fukui Family Residence Storehouse (Database of National Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004413
- Shimakawa Daigo and Tanikawa Daisuke, research on the former residence of Shiga Naoya in Onomichi (Architectural Institute of Japan, Chugoku Chapter research reports, vol. 48, Japanese)
- https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/aijchugoku/48/0/48_845/_pdf/-char/ja
- Onomichi Literary Park and Nakamura Kenkichi's Former Residence (Onomichi City, Japanese)
- https://www.city.onomichi.hiroshima.jp/soshiki/7/32941.html
- Onomichi Houses of Literature (Hiroshima International Center facility guide)
- https://hiroshima-ic.or.jp/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/yutai471.pdf
Last verified: 2026.10.20
Basic Information
| Name | Former Fukui Family Residence |
|---|---|
| Location | 163-1 Higashitsuchidocho, Onomichi City, Hiroshima Prefecture, and other locations |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (3) |
| Coordinates | 34.40944, 133.19929 |
