American House (former Hamway Residence)

One Western-Style House, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property since 2003

American House (former Hamway Residence) (アメリカンハウス（旧ハムウェイ邸）) stands at 3-57 Kitanocho, Chuo Ward, Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture, a Showa-period Western-style house entered on the register of tangible cultural properties on 1 July 2003. It is a registered property rather than a designated one.

The quantity is one building. The owner is a limited company (有限会社濵田商事).

The structure is timber, two-storeyed, tiled, with a floor area of 100 square metres. The date field reads early Showa and the year field 1926 to 1988.

Three Connected Living and Dining Rooms with a Fireplace

The south side of the ground floor is one continuous space for daily life.

The Agency records the south side of the ground floor as a living and dining area of 3 connected rooms, with a fireplace toward the west and the kitchen on the north side. On the upper floor are the private rooms.

Three connected rooms are used together without dividing walls. Living and dining rooms lie along the sunny south, a fireplace at one end, and the kitchen behind to the north.

At the Akagi main house, the uses divide by floor: six rooms below, formal rooms above, silkworms at the top.

Here too the floors divide their roles, a gathering place for the household below and separate rooms above. The heart of the house is not a matted reception room but a living room with a fireplace.

A fireplace is a hearth within a room where a fire is lit for warmth.

A Rectangular Plan with Only the South-East Corner Projecting

One corner of a regular rectangle juts outward.

The Agency records a two-storeyed timber house with a hipped roof, on a rectangular plan long from east to west, with the south-east corner projecting a little.

A hipped roof slopes down on all four sides. On a box-like plan long from east to west, only the south-east corner stands slightly forward.

The Ota power station throws out an octagonal tower at its southern corner.

The projection here keeps the same form and simply brings the corner a little forward.

The sunny south with its living and dining rooms and the projecting south-east corner lie on the same side. The record does not say how the two relate.

The Present Name Outside, the Former Resident in Brackets

One name holds both the present name and the name of an earlier resident.

Outside the brackets is American House; inside, the former Hamway Residence. A residence here is the home of a person.

At the Makita Gumi head office, too, the present name stands outside and the former name, marked former, inside the brackets.

This has the same order, and the earlier name is that of a person who lived here rather than a company.

The Agency places it among the Western houses of the Kitano district of Kobe, and closes that it is a fine example of a Western-style house of the early Showa period.

Within a district of Western houses, it is valued as a house of the early Showa years.

Visiting

The house stands at 3-57 Kitanocho, Chuo Ward, Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture, owned by a limited company.

The date field reads early Showa yet gives the years as 1926 to 1988, the whole span of the era. The privy at the Tani Yutaka residence is recorded the same way. The commentary calls it a fine example of an early Showa Western-style house.

It is a two-storeyed timber house of 100 square metres with a tiled roof.

The house belongs to a company, so opening and terms follow the owner's arrangements. Check before travelling.

Other Western houses stand around it in the Kitano district.