Yoneda Family Residence Main House

The House at the Centre of the Estate

The Yoneda Family Residence Main House (米田家住宅主屋, Yoneda-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a single-storey wooden house built in 1941 (Showa 16) in Uyama, Sumoto City, Hyogo Prefecture, and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2004.

It stands toward the east of the Yoneda estate and faces west. The roof is a hip-and-gable (irimoya-zukuri) form with its ridge running north to south, finished in sangawara pan tiles, and lean-to roofs, called geya, wrap around the west and south sides. A porch with its own hip-and-gable roof projects from the west front.

With a building area of 124 square metres, the main house ties with the guest hall as the largest of the eight buildings raised that year. A long, narrow storage shed runs behind it on the east, and a covered corridor links it to the shinden pavilion in the middle of the estate.

Why It Was Registered

The Yoneda Family Residence Main House was registered on 2 March 2004, in the 41st round of national registrations, as number 28-0142, under the criterion of serving as a model of good design.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes a house in the sukiya manner (sukiya-zukuri), the refined residential style that grew out of tea-house design, held together by delicate proportions and built to a high standard from fine timber. Its quality lies in balance and material rather than ornament.

Just as useful, we know who built it. The munafuda, a wooden ridge tag recording a building's construction, names the designer as 山本豊圓 (Yamamoto) and the master carpenter as 斎藤三吉 (Saitō). Having both the person who drew the plans and the person who ran the site on record makes this a valuable document of how a pre-war Showa house came together.

What to Look For

A porch stepped out in front

On the west front, a smaller hip-and-gable roof over the entrance sits ahead of the main roof. The two roofs overlap, one behind the other, and give a single-storey house a layered, deeper-looking façade.

Low eaves on two sides

Along the west and south, the lean-tos add a second, lower tier of roof beneath the main eaves. Splitting the roof this way keeps the eave line down, so the house reads as long and low rather than tall.

Proportion before decoration

Sukiya houses usually keep posts and eave members slender so the building feels light. Published records do not describe the room plan or the woods used inside the Yoneda Family Residence Main House, but the Agency singles out the quality of its timber, which is worth bearing in mind when you look at the database photographs.

Visiting

The main house is part of a private home. As of October 2026 we found no announcement of interior viewings or tours, and the grounds are closed to visitors. Because the house faces west into the estate, we could not confirm whether its porch can be seen from outside the property.

Exterior photographs are available in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database of national cultural properties.