Two Tatami Rooms and a Western Annex
The Detached Wing of the Inaoka Family Residence (稲岡家住宅離れ, Inaoka-ke Jūtaku Hanare) is an early Shōwa-period reception building at 813-2 Mikuchi-chō in Kasai City, Hyōgo Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on 12 July 2005.
A hanare, literally a separated building, is a Japanese domestic type with no exact Western equivalent. It sits apart from the main house yet belongs to the same household, and it is where guests are received, retired parents live, or a family keeps the rooms it wants free of daily clutter. The Inaoka wing was built for the first of those purposes, and it was built well.
The wing stands immediately west of and touching the main house, with its ridge running east to west, matching the older building's orientation. It measures six and a half ken along the ridge by three ken deep, in the region of 11.8 by 5.5 metres, under a hip-and-gable roof of pantiles. Unlike the main house it is a genuine two-storey timber structure, with a listed building area of 96 square metres.
Inside, the arrangement is deliberately simple: two rooms of eight tatami mats each, ringed on all four sides by an engawa veranda and a corridor. Nothing is squeezed. A guest seated in either room has open circulation behind and light on every side, and the corridor absorbs the traffic that would otherwise cross the mats.
The One-Room Western Building
The feature the Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out sits at the back, on the east side, in the joint where the wing meets the main house. There, the Inaoka family placed a single Western-style room, and treated it as a small building in its own right.
Its roof is han-kirizuma-zukuri, a half-gable in which the peak of the gable is cut back at an angle, the form English builders call a jerkinhead or hipped gable. It is tiled not with the Japanese pantiles used elsewhere on the property but with French tiles, the interlocking Marseille pattern manufactured in Japan from the late nineteenth century onward and read at the time as unmistakably foreign.
The walls are finished in what Japanese builders called German wall (doitsu-kabe), a mortar render thrown or dabbed on to leave a coarse, irregular surface rather than trowelled flat. Across the gable, timbers are laid over the render to suggest half-timbering, the exposed-frame look of northern European vernacular building. None of it is structural. It is a picture of a European house, composed in the materials available in rural Harima.
The result rewards a slow look. Walk around to the rear and within a few paces the eye passes from pantiles to French tiles, from smooth plaster to rough render, from bare timber to applied pattern. One household, one decade, two ideas of what a good room should look like, and the seam between them left frankly visible.
Why It Was Registered
Registration came under the criterion of being a model of design (造形の規範となっているもの), in the forty-sixth round of registrations, with register number 28-0193. The number sits immediately after the main house at 28-0192, and both were registered on the same day, 12 July 2005, with public notice on 2 August. The two buildings were assessed as parts of one property.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs places construction in the early Shōwa period; the Hyōgo Prefectural Board of Education list records it as prewar Shōwa. A precise year is not given in either source, so the date should be read as approximate. What is clear is the generational gap: the main house belongs to the late Meiji era, the wing to a period two or three decades later, when the family had the means and the inclination to build a room for show.
Registered Tangible Cultural Property status, created in 1996, is designed for exactly this kind of building. It protects modern-era architecture through notification requirements rather than strict controls, on the understanding that a house still lived in stands a better chance of surviving than one emptied for preservation.
Practical Notes for Visitors
The wing is privately owned and is not open to the public. The prefectural register lists the owner as a private individual, and no tours, opening days, or admission arrangements have been announced. There is no interior access, and the Western room cannot be seen from inside.
Viewing is from the public road only. Because the wing sits west of and behind the main house, and because the Western annex is placed at the rear on the east side, sightlines from the road are partial. Visitors should expect glimpses rather than a full elevation, and should not enter the grounds or lean over walls to improve the angle. Photography from public ground is unrestricted; the rest is a matter of ordinary courtesy toward people at home.
Kasai City is served by the Hōjō Railway running north from Ao Station. Hokkeguchi is the nearest stop, about twenty minutes on foot from Mikuchi-chō or five by taxi. The station building itself, put up in 1915, was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2014 and now contains a bakery, which makes it a reasonable place to begin. Shinki buses from Himeji Station toward Yashiro pass nearby, and drivers should use the Kakogawa-kita interchange on the Sanyō Expressway.
Five kilometres west lies Ichijōji, the twenty-sixth temple on the Saigoku Kannon pilgrimage. Its pagoda of 1171 is a National Treasure and its main hall of 1628 an Important Cultural Property; admission is 500 yen. Kasai remains sake country, and local breweries in the area receive visitors by prior arrangement during the winter brewing months.
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Q&A
- Is the Inaoka Family Residence Detached Wing open to visitors?
- No. It is privately owned, with no published opening days, tours, or admission fee, and the interior cannot be entered. Registration as a Tangible Cultural Property does not oblige an owner to open a building. Viewing is limited to partial exterior glimpses from the public road.
- What is the Western-style room attached to the Inaoka Family Residence Detached Wing?
- It is a single-room Western building set at the rear, on the east side, where the wing joins the main house. It has a half-gabled roof, French tiles, rough German-wall render, and timbers applied across the gable to imitate half-timbering. The Agency for Cultural Affairs treats it as the wing's defining feature.
- When was the Inaoka Family Residence Detached Wing built, and how does it relate to the main house?
- It dates to the early Shōwa period, two or three decades after the late Meiji main house, and stands immediately west of it, touching, with a matching east-west ridge. Both were registered together on 12 July 2005 as parts of one property, numbered 28-0192 and 28-0193.
- What are French tiles and a German wall on the Inaoka Family Residence Detached Wing?
- French tiles are interlocking Marseille-pattern roof tiles made in Japan from the late nineteenth century and used as a marker of Western style. A German wall is a mortar render applied to leave a deliberately coarse surface instead of a smooth one. Both appear only on the Western annex.
- How do I get to the Inaoka Family Residence Detached Wing in Kasai City?
- Take the Hōjō Railway from Ao Station to Hokkeguchi, then walk roughly twenty minutes or take a taxi for about five. Shinki buses from Himeji Station toward Yashiro serve the area, and drivers should use the Kakogawa-kita interchange. The address is 813-2 Mikuchi-chō, Kasai City, Hyōgo Prefecture.
Basic Information
| Name | Inaoka Family Residence Detached Wing (稲岡家住宅離れ) |
|---|---|
| Location | 813-2 Mikuchi-chō, Kasai City, Hyōgo Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure); register no. 28-0193, 46th round; criterion: a model of design |
| Year Designated | Registered 12 July 2005; public notice 2 August 2005 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Two-storey timber construction, tiled roof, building area 96 square metres; approximately 6.5 by 3 ken on plan |
| Owner | Private individual |
| Public Access | Not open to the public; partial exterior viewing from the public road only |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: Inaoka-ke Jutaku Hanare
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004810
- Cultural Heritage Online: Inaoka-ke Jutaku Hanare
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/189540
- Hyogo Prefectural Board of Education: List of Nationally Registered Cultural Properties (Structures)
- https://www.hyogo-c.ed.jp/~shabun-bo/gyouseisituhp/top/31kunitouroku.pdf
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: Inaoka-ke Jutaku Shuoku
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004809
- Kasai City: Ichijoji Three-storey Pagoda, National Treasure
- https://www.city.kasai.hyogo.jp/soshiki/34/1685.html
Last verified: 2026.08.26