Yano Family Residence

About the Yano Family Residence

The Yano Family Residence (箟家住宅, Yano-ke Jūtaku) is an old family estate in Gogazuka 3-chome, Itami City, Hyogo Prefecture, whose ten structures, built around a main house of 1838 and completed in the late Taisho era, were entered on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on March 6, 2024. When the Council for Cultural Affairs issued its recommendation on November 24, 2023, it covered 24 structures in Hyogo Prefecture, and ten of them stood on this single property. For Itami, it was only the second entry of its kind within the city limits.

The family name is written with a rare character, 箟, and read Yano. Machine readings of the kanji go wrong often enough that the Agency for Cultural Affairs database is the safest place to confirm it: its furigana gives yano-ke jūtaku.

About 340 meters south of the Yano Family Residence lies Gogazuka Kofun, a keyhole-shaped burial mound of the 5th century with a short front section and a moat that still holds water. The Agency's description of the estate locates it simply as the old house north of the tumulus. The residence remains in private hands and is still lived in.

A Village with Four Lords

In the Edo period the land around the Yano Family Residence formed Gogazuka Village, a farming community with an assessed yield of about 804 koku of rice. According to the Itami City Museum of Art, History and Culture, that yield was split among four lords: roughly 181 koku went to the Abe family of the Oshi domain, about 512 koku to the Okano family of shogunal retainers, and the remainder to two separate Kimura households. Historians call this arrangement aikyū, a shared fief.

Water came through the Koya-yu, a channel drawn off the Muko River that passed several villages before reaching Gogazuka, and the villagers bargained repeatedly with upstream neighbors over their share. At the Yano estate this history is visible in one detail. The clothing storehouse at the northwest corner stands directly on the stone revetment of the Gogazuka irrigation channel.

In 1889 Gogazuka merged with nine neighboring villages to become part of Inano Village. In 1921 the Hanshin Kyuko Railway opened a stop on its Itami Line here, today's Hankyu Inano Station, and suburban housing began to spread across the southern fields. The gate, storehouses and walls of the Yano Family Residence took their present form during exactly those decades, as the farming village was turning into a commuter suburb.

How the Estate Is Laid Out

The Yano Family Residence occupies a roughly square plot. The main house sits north of center and faces south. Along the north edge, running west to east, stand the clothing storehouse, the lattice room, the grain storehouse and the charcoal barn. A long barn lines the east side, a rice storehouse holds the southeast corner, and a nagayamon gatehouse occupies the middle of the south front. Two roofed walls, one at the northeast corner and one at the southwest, close the gaps between buildings along the road, so that the whole perimeter is shut by structures of one kind or another.

Construction spans more than seventy years. The main house dates to 1838, with additions in 1845 and 1923 and a renovation in 1986. The lattice room, grain storehouse, charcoal barn, barn, rice storehouse and southwest wall belong to the late Meiji era, between 1898 and 1912, and the gatehouse was built in 1905. The clothing storehouse followed in 1918, when three of the north-side buildings were also altered, and the northeast wall was added in the late Taisho era, between 1919 and 1926.

• Main House (1838; additions 1845 and 1923; register no. 28-0797)
• Clothing Storehouse (1918; no. 28-0798)
• Lattice Room (late Meiji, altered c. 1918; no. 28-0799)
• Grain Storehouse (late Meiji, altered c. 1918; no. 28-0800)
• Charcoal Barn (late Meiji, altered c. 1918; no. 28-0801)
• Barn (late Meiji; no. 28-0802)
• Rice Storehouse (late Meiji; no. 28-0803)
• Nagayamon Gate (1905, altered late Taisho; no. 28-0804)
• Northeast Wall (late Taisho; no. 28-0805)
• Southwest Wall (late Meiji; no. 28-0806)

All ten were registered under the same criterion: contribution to the historic landscape of the nation. The listing rewards the ensemble. A visitor who looks only at the main house sees half of what made the Yano Family Residence worth registering.

Visiting and Access

The Yano Family Residence is a private home. The grounds and interiors are closed, and neither the owners nor Itami City publish open days or tour arrangements (checked September 26, 2026). What can be seen is the exterior, from the public road.

The north side and the south front reward the walk best. On the north, four storehouse and barn buildings line up eave to eave; on the south, the gatehouse and the southwest wall form the formal face of the estate. Itami City notes that the northeast and southwest walls both stand along the road. The main house stands behind the gate and walls, and from outside you should expect to see little more than part of its roof.

No guidance on photography has been published. This is a lived-in house, so keep your camera off the gate opening and the windows, and take in the whole from across the road.

The nearest station is Inano on the Hankyu Itami Line. The Yano Family Residence lies about 500 meters northwest of the station in a straight line, a walk of just under 10 minutes. Inadera Station on the JR Takarazuka Line is about 1 kilometer away. No visitor parking is advertised. Walking north past the moat of Gogazuka Kofun brings you into the blocks of the old village where the estate stands.