Seishikan (Former Tomita Family Residence)

About Seishikan (Former Tomita Family Residence)

Seishikan (Former Tomita Family Residence) (静思館（旧冨田家住宅）, Seishikan Kyū-Tomita-ke Jūtaku) is an early Showa country house in Ueno, Inagawa Town, Hyogo Prefecture, completed in 1934 for the art dealer Tomita Kumasaku, whose 18 buildings, gates and walls were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2004.

The estate covers 2,505 m², and its buildings add up to 534.3 m² of floor area. A thatched main house stands at the center, facing south. Around it are a long gatehouse, four plastered storehouses, a row of small sheds painted in red Bengara, and a set of earthen and timber walls. Locally the place is also called the former Tomita residence. It sits right beside Inagawa Town Hall, and the town has run it as a public cultural facility named Seishikan since 1984.

Tomita Kumasaku and the building of Seishikan

According to the town's leaflet, Tomita Kumasaku was born in 1872 in Ueno, then part of Nakatani Village, the second son of a sake-brewing family. At twelve he went to Kobe to work for an antiques trading firm. In 1903 he joined Yamanaka & Co., the dealer in East Asian art, and soon ran its London branch, where his clients included the British royal family and major collectors. He left Yamanaka in 1922, at fifty, and set up as an art dealer in Kyoto. He is remembered for helping the Swiss businessman Alfred Baur build his collection of East Asian art. He died in 1953, aged 81.

Seishikan is the house he built in his home village. Town sources say construction began in 1932 and took three years; the Agency for Cultural Affairs dates all 18 structures to 1934, and that is the completion year used here. The master carpenter of the main house was Saito Sotaro, described by the town as a Kyoto builder. The cost is said to have been about 100,000 yen, more than twice the annual budget of Nakatani Village at the time.

The leaflet lists the timber: polished Kitayama cedar logs, Tanba pine, Owari cypress and imported tropical hardwoods. The house was modeled on the farmhouse of a wealthy Edo-period landowner, but Tomita also meant to entertain foreign guests here, so modern equipment was built in. The main house roof rests on a truss, a water tower lifted well water to a tank that fed flush toilets, and the study storehouse has a heated floor. Walking through Seishikan, you keep finding these modern touches tucked behind traditional fronts.

From private house to town facility

Inagawa Town bought the Tomita estate in 1984 and opened it to the public. The name Seishikan means roughly "hall of quiet thought"; the town says it was chosen because the green surroundings offer visitors a place to rest and reflect.

In 1987 the house was chosen as one of the "100 Selected Houses of Hyogo," and on June 9, 2004, all 18 structures were registered nationally. In 2008 Hyogo Prefecture also named it an Important Landscape Building. The Japanese-style rooms and the tea room are rented out for classes and gatherings, and seasonal events are held here.

The 18 registered structures of Seishikan

The 18 structures of Seishikan carry consecutive registration numbers, 28-0150 to 28-0167, and were registered on the same day. They fall under three registration criteria.

• A model of architectural form: the Main House (261 m²), the Tea Room (10 m²), the Study Storehouse (27 m²) and the Attendants' Waiting Shelter (4.2 m²)
• Difficult to reproduce: the Water Tower (9.8 m², with a tower top)
• Contributing to the historic landscape: the Front Gate (59 m²), the Northwest Storehouse (40 m²), the Middle Storehouse (19 m²), the Clothing Storehouse (16 m²), the Brushwood Room (17 m²), the Tool Room (25 m²), the Charcoal Room (14 m²), the Miso Room (11 m²), the Guardhouse (20 m²), the Well Hut (2.1 m²), the Garden Wall (13 m long), the Service Gate (4.2 m wide) and the Earthen Wall (98 m long)

What makes Seishikan unusual is completeness. Almost every piece of the estate is registered, from the great thatched roof down to a well shelter of about 2 m². Each structure has its own page with details of construction and what to look for.

Layout of the Seishikan estate

You approach Seishikan from the old road to the south, along an access path. The Guardhouse and the Well Hut stand side by side on this path, and beyond them the Front Gate closes off the south side of the estate. It is a Nagayamon, a gatehouse with a tatami room on the west and a farm-tool store on the east. Just inside, on the west, is the Attendants' Waiting Shelter, where servants accompanying guests would wait.

Inside the gate the ground divides into two gardens. The western forecourt leads to the earth-floored entrance of the main house, with the Brushwood Room on its west side. The eastern inner garden is screened off by the Garden Wall, and the Study Storehouse and the Tea Room face onto it. The Main House stands in the middle facing south, and from its southwest corner the Service Gate runs across to the Tool Room, separating the forecourt from the back yard.

Along the west side, the Tool Room, Charcoal Room and Miso Room line up from south to north. Along the north side stand the Northwest, Middle and Clothing Storehouses, with the Water Tower between the Main House and the Middle Storehouse. An earthen wall about 98 m long, set on a high stone base, encloses the east and north sides. The town leaflet also shows an unregistered ice cellar about 20 m deep behind the house, used as an air-raid shelter during the war.

Visiting Seishikan (Former Tomita Family Residence)

Seishikan is a town-run facility and admission is free. It is open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and closed on Mondays (the following day if Monday is a holiday) and from December 29 to January 3. The town notes that you may not be able to view the rooms when they are booked for rental. Rental of the Japanese rooms or the tea room costs 700 yen per room per hour, and double for non-residents of Inagawa.

Photography rules were revised in January 2023. Personal snapshots taken as a sightseer need no permission. Professional shoots, wedding or festival portrait sessions, commercial photography, use of tripods or stepladders, and shoots that occupy the grounds for a long time require a rental booking, applied for at least three days ahead. Pets are not allowed (assistance dogs are). The old buildings have many sills and steps, and there are no wheelchair facilities.

By public transport, take the Nose Electric Railway to Nissei-Chuo Station, then a Hankyu bus to the Ueno stop, about a 3-minute walk away. Hankyu buses also run to Ueno from Kawanishi-Noseguchi Station. Drivers can use the three parking spaces beside the main gate or the town hall car park next door to the north, entering through the side gate. Fees, hours and photography rules were checked on the town website on October 1, 2026.