Nishio Family Residence

A Sake Brewer's Compound on the Old San'in Road

The Nishio Family Residence (西尾家住宅, Nishio-ke Jūtaku) is the compound of a sake-brewing family on the old San'in Road in Oyamakami, Tambasasayama City, Hyogo Prefecture, where a main house built in 1733 and ten later storehouses, workshops, gates and walls were registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 23 July 2004.

The local community council in Ōyama describes the Nishio as an old family that served as purveyors to the Sasayama domain, and as the birthplace of the late Edo-period haikai poet Nishio Buryō (西尾武陵). The Agency for Cultural Affairs, for its part, calls the long sake storehouse on the east side of the compound the core of the brewery. Home and business shared the same ground here.

Ōyama is an old name. Tambasasayama City notes that a document of 845 kept at Tōji temple in Kyoto already mentions an "Ōyama estate." The Nishio compound faces the old highway that runs through the district.

The eleven registered structures fall into a few clear groups: rooms for living and receiving guests (the main house, the annex and the teahouse), storehouses for household goods, three large buildings for brewing, a gate and garden wall along the road, and, on the far side of the road, a shed for a waterwheel and livestock with its own gate and wall. House, brewery and farmyard survive side by side on either side of the road.

How the Compound Is Laid Out

The Nishio Family Residence occupies two plots: the main compound at 699 Oyamakami on the south side of the old road, and a smaller lot at 694 Oyamakami directly across it to the north. The descriptions in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database make it possible to place each building in relation to the main house.

South of the road: the main house and its forecourt

The main house stands toward the north end of the main plot, facing the road, with its entrance on the north side. A garden wall starts at the reception rooms of the house, runs west along the road and meets the northwest corner of the teahouse; its gate opens on the east face. The annex sits in the northeast corner of the plot, parallel to the road, with a side gate between it and the house. Together these three enclose the forecourt in front of the main entrance.

West of the house: teahouse and storehouses

The teahouse stands west of the reception rooms and is reached by a short covered walkway. South of it are the paired Heyagura and Nakagura storehouses, and south again New Storehouse 1, the two storehouses lined up north to south.

Across the channel: New Storehouse 2

A water channel runs north to south along the west side of that row. Beyond it, on land added to the compound, stands New Storehouse 2, a two-storey brewery building 12 ken long whose north gable faces the road.

South and east: the brewery buildings

South of the house the Storehouse Gallery runs roughly east to west, while the sake brewery extends north to south from the southeast of the house. Between them they close off the east side of the compound with a long run of white-plastered walls.

North of the road: the waterwheel shed

Across the old road, the waterwheel, cattle and chicken shed stands on the northern lot, and its gate and wall run along the south edge of that lot, facing the road. The wall is built the same way as the forecourt wall opposite, so anyone walking the road passes between two matching walls.

Read this way, the living and guest rooms cluster in the northwest near the road, the brewery spreads south, east and then west across the channel, and the farm work was kept on the other side of the highway. That reading comes from the building positions recorded by the Agency; no source describing how the family actually used each space has been found.

About 170 Years of Building

Arranged by date, the eleven structures show the compound growing over roughly 170 years:

• Main house: 1733 (Kyōhō 18)
• Teahouse: 1820 (Bunsei 3)
• Heyagura and Nakagura storehouses, sake brewery, annex, front garden gate and wall: late Edo period
• New Storehouse 1, waterwheel shed, and its gate and wall: early Meiji era
• New Storehouse 2 and the Storehouse Gallery: late Meiji era

The main house is 87 years older than the teahouse and by far the oldest structure here. The brewery, storehouses and street walls followed in the late Edo period, and the Meiji era added new storehouses and the shed across the road. The two largest Meiji buildings, New Storehouse 2 and the Storehouse Gallery, came at the end of that run.

The Registration

All eleven structures were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (structures) in the 43rd round of registrations, dated 23 July 2004 and announced on 17 August 2004. They carry the consecutive registration numbers 28-0176 to 28-0186.

Two different criteria were applied. The teahouse and the Heyagura and Nakagura storehouses were registered as models of architectural design; the other nine as contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

• Main house (28-0176): wooden, single storey, tiled roof, building area 332 square metres
• Teahouse (28-0177): wooden, single storey, copper and tile roof, building area 31 square metres
• Heyagura and Nakagura storehouses (28-0178): earthen storehouse, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 40 square metres
• New Storehouse 1 (28-0179): earthen storehouse, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 35 square metres
• New Storehouse 2 (28-0180): earthen storehouse, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 279 square metres
• Storehouse Gallery (28-0181): earthen storehouse, single storey with partial upper floor, tiled roof, building area 156 square metres
• Sake brewery (28-0182): earthen storehouse, single storey, tiled roof, building area 360 square metres
• Annex (28-0183): wooden, single storey, tiled roof, building area 50 square metres, with side gate and wall
• Front garden gate and wall (28-0184): wooden, copper roof, gate 4.8 metres wide, wall 20 metres long
• Waterwheel, cattle and chicken shed (28-0185): wooden, single storey, tiled roof, building area 65 square metres
• Waterwheel shed gate and wall (28-0186): wooden, tiled roof, gate 2.4 metres wide, wall 13 metres long

Visiting and Getting There

The Nishio Family Residence is a private home. As of October 2026 no notice of public opening or visits by appointment could be found. When the buildings were registered, the Agency noted that the Storehouse Gallery served as a museum of the Nishio main family, with its eastern half used as a display gallery, but no current information on opening days or how to arrange a visit has been published. Plan to see the compound from outside.

The buildings that face the old San'in Road are the easiest to see: the north front and entrance of the main house, the forecourt gate and wall, the annex, the north gable of New Storehouse 2 and, across the road, the waterwheel shed with its gate and wall. The long walls of the sake brewery and the Storehouse Gallery are on the east side of the plot. This is private property, so keep to the road and do not linger at the gates.

The nearest station is Tamba-Ōyama on the JR Fukuchiyama Line; the main house lies about 4 kilometres northwest of it in a straight line. According to the Ōyama community council, Shinki Green Bus and the Tambasasayama community bus both serve the district. By car, the council's directions put Ōyama about 10 minutes from the Tannan-Sasayamaguchi interchange on the Maizuru-Wakasa Expressway. No parking for visitors is advertised.

The Name

Nishio-ke Jūtaku means simply "the Nishio family residence." In the Agency's database each structure is registered under the family name followed by the building, for example Nishio-ke Jūtaku Shuoku for the main house. Heyagura and Nakagura are read "heya-gura" and "naka-gura," and the two new storehouses "shingura." The district name 大山上 is read Ōyamakami.

The database still gives the address as Sasayama City, but the city changed its name to Tambasasayama on 1 May 2019. Other buildings registered under the same name, Nishio Family Residence, stand in Nantan in Kyoto Prefecture and Nahari in Kochi Prefecture; they belong to different families.