Murakami Family Residence

A Walled Estate Above Matsunaga Bay

The Murakami Family Residence (村上家住宅, Murakami-ke Jūtaku) is a merchant family estate in Imazu-cho, Fukuyama City, Hiroshima Prefecture, whose eight structures, dating from the late Edo period (1830–1867) to the late Meiji period (1898–1911), were registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 10 September 2010.

The estate occupies a hillside that looks south across Matsunaga Bay, an inlet of the Seto Inland Sea. A high stone wall wraps the south, west and north sides of the plot, and every building sits on the platform it creates. At the southwest corner the wall rises 4.2 metres. Seen from the lane below, the place reads less like a house than a small fortification, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs itself compares the effect to a castle.

The family traded under the house name Takemotoya and, according to local tradition recorded by Fukuyama City, prospered through salt-related business and coastal shipping. The city's heritage portal places the estate within two of its thematic heritage clusters, one on land reclamation and village formation and one on local industry, linking the family's fortunes to the reclaimed land and salt pans that once ringed Matsunaga Bay.

Imazu was also a post town on the Saigoku Kaido highway during the Edo period. The official inn for travelling lords (honjin) there was run by a different family, the Kawamoto, so the Murakami Family Residence should not be confused with the Imazu honjin site.

Why Eight Structures Were Registered Together

The eight registration numbers run consecutively from 34-0096 to 34-0103, and all eight share a single criterion: structures that contribute to the historic landscape of the country. Taken one by one, most are modest, a pair of plastered storehouses, a barn, two gates, a roofed well. What earned registration is the way they sit together on the walled platform and read as one complete compound.

The dates tell a story of their own. The long gatehouse, the two storehouses, the well house and the stone wall all go back to the late Edo period. The main house, the smaller Udegimon gate in front of it and the barn are recorded as late Meiji. In other words, the outer shell and the stores survived from the Edo period, while the central house and the gate framing its garden were renewed some decades later. The stone wall carries traces of a Meiji-era fire, but no published source connects that fire with the rebuilding of the house.

Fukuyama City describes the main house as a former guest hall, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs identifies its upper floor as reception rooms. The compound was organised around a building for receiving visitors and displaying the standing of the household, rather than around everyday family life.

How the Estate Is Laid Out

Within the Murakami Family Residence walls, the main house stands toward the west. Southeast of it, the long Nagayamon gatehouse runs east to west and forms the public front of the estate. South of the main house lies a garden, closed off by the Udegimon gate and its flanking tile-capped walls.

North of the main house is the clothing storehouse, with the rice storehouse to its east and a barn bridging the gap between them. The well house stands east of the rice storehouse. This northern range presents heavy, fully tiled and thick-walled faces to the outside world, while the sides facing into the compound are lighter in finish, a deliberate contrast between the estate's public face and its working interior.

Each structure has its own page covering construction details and what to look for.

Visiting and Getting There

The Murakami Family Residence is a private home, not a museum, and it is not regularly open to the public. When we checked in September 2026, Fukuyama City's heritage portal listed no public openings or visit arrangements. Please stay outside the walls and gates and enjoy the stone wall and gatehouse from the surrounding lanes. If you take photographs, avoid windows and residents.

The address is 1929 Naganami, Imazu-cho, Fukuyama City. The estate lies roughly 1 kilometre northwest of Matsunaga Station on the JR Sanyo Line, measured in a straight line on the map, or about 20 minutes on foot. No visitor parking is advertised, so avoid stopping on the narrow roads nearby.

Enquiries about the Murakami Family Residence as a cultural property go to the cultural properties section of Fukuyama City's Culture Promotion Division (tel. 084-928-1278).