Tajika Family Residence

A headman's compound in Nishikoya

The Tajika Family Residence (田近家住宅, Tajika-ke Jūtaku) in Nishikoya, Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, is the compound of a village headman's family, and five of its buildings, from a late Edo-period tool and oil storehouse to the main house and gatehouse renewed around 1887, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on April 28, 2009. The district name 西昆陽 is read Nishikoya.

Nishikoya is an old farming settlement in the north of Amagasaki, along the Mukogawa River, and the Tajika Family Residence sits near its middle. Amagasaki City presents the house as a record of how a shōya (village headman) family lived in a prosperous village on the edge of Osaka between the late Edo period and the early Meiji years.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs says much the same of the main house, noting a dignified exterior that keeps the air of a headman's home. What gives the Tajika Family Residence its value is that the whole arrangement survives: the house at the centre, the gatehouse and three storehouses around it.

How the compound is laid out

The main house stands in the middle of the plot, facing south, with the other four buildings around it. On the southern street stands the nagayamon gatehouse, a little east of centre. In front of it run a roadside waterway and a hedge, which, the Agency notes, combine with the gatehouse to give the residence its formal frontage.

Along the west side, storehouses follow one another from north to south. At the northern end, a 2-storey tool storehouse continues into a lower, single-storey oil storehouse, and the rice storehouse carries on to the south. All three have gabled tiled roofs and tall vertical boarding on stone bases, with white plaster above, but each varies the ridge height, the height of the boards and the placing of the windows, so the street along the waterway gets a solid yet varied frontage. Amagasaki City picks out this western row as the most attractive view of the Tajika Family Residence.

The clothing storehouse sits off the northeast corner of the main house, joined to it by a covered kuramae passage. Unlike the gate and the western storehouses, which face the street, it belongs to the private side of the household.

Five registrations and their dates

The five registered buildings are the main house, the clothing storehouse, the tool and oil storehouse, the rice storehouse and the gatehouse, numbered 28-0386 to 28-0390. All five were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape of the country.

The oldest is the late Edo tool and oil storehouse. The main house began as a late Edo dwelling and was remodelled into its present form around 1887; its tea-room wing on the east side was added around 1915. Amagasaki City says the gatehouse, too, was a building from the very end of the Edo period, remodelled around the same time as the house. The clothing and rice storehouses date from the mid-Meiji era.

Keep the Edo storehouse, renew the house and the gate, add storehouses, then a tea room: read in order, the five dates show a compound that each generation adjusted rather than replaced.

Visiting

The Tajika Family Residence is a private home and, according to Amagasaki City, is not open to the public. Visitors cannot enter the grounds or the buildings, and no special openings were announced as of October 2026.

What can be seen from outside is the gatehouse on the southern street and the tool, oil and rice storehouses along the waterway on the west. The main house and the clothing storehouse stand inside the grounds and are barely visible from the road. These are the edges of someone's home, so look in passing rather than lingering at the gate or in front of the storehouses, and take any photographs without getting in the way of residents or traffic.

Getting there

Nishikoya lies about 3 kilometres north-northwest of Mukonoso Station on the Hankyu Kobe Line, in a straight line. Hanshin Bus routes within Amagasaki run from the north side of Mukonoso Station toward Nishikoya; the Nishikoya stop is a short walk from the Tajika Family Residence (as of October 2026; check route numbers and frequency with Hanshin Bus before setting out). There is no visitor parking, as the house is not a museum.