Former Hoonokidate Family Residence (Ichinohe Town, Ninohe District, Iwate Prefecture)

What Is the Former Hoonokidate Family Residence?

The Former Hoonokidate Family Residence (旧朴舘家住宅, Kyū Hōnokidate-ke Jūtaku) is a large thatched farmhouse in Kozuya, Ichinohe Town, Ninohe District, Iwate Prefecture, said to have been built around 1862; its main house and storehouse were designated together as an Important Cultural Property in 2011.

The house sits in the hills near the middle of Ichinohe, beside the route of the old Oshu Kaido highway. Ichinohe Town records that the Hoonokidate family moved here in the mid-Edo period from Urushizawa, in what is now Joboji-machi, Ninohe City. Until the early Showa era the family owned about 750 chōbu of forest and 12 chōbu of fields. Over the generations it worked in forestry, farming, lacquer-wax production, cattle and horse breeding, charcoal making, and silkworm raising, and it kept around ten hired hands at any time. The house and garden also served as the venue for local festivals.

The site slopes gently to the north. The main house faces east in the middle of the plot, and the storehouse stands to its west, facing south. Iwate Prefecture designated the main house in 1990, and in 1992 the family donated it to the town. The national designation covers the land as well as the two buildings.

Why the Former Hoonokidate Family Residence Was Designated

The main house measures 29.9 meters across and 16.4 meters deep under a hipped Yosemune-zukuri roof. Ichinohe Town describes it as the largest farmhouse in Iwate Prefecture, with a floor area of about 150 tsubo (roughly 500 square meters). The Agency for Cultural Affairs points first to its heavy timber frame and the sheer volume of its interior.

The agency also stresses the plan. A formal Shikidai entrance and a suite of three reception rooms show how much space was set aside for guests, while a wide earthen-floored area on the north side housed livestock. That combination, the agency says, reflects the region's ties to cattle and horse breeding and captures the character of an upper-class farmhouse in the Nanbu domain. The house was designated under the criterion for buildings that are outstanding examples of a regional style.

Iwate is best known for the magariya, an L-shaped farmhouse with the stable built out as a wing. The Former Hoonokidate Family Residence keeps its stable inside a single rectangular block instead, a type known as sugoya.

Inside the House: Massive Posts and Double Beams

About 40 percent of the main house, on the north side, is earthen-floored. A deeply excavated stable, the maya, is boxed in with board walls, and the rest is a work floor. According to the town, the family usually kept about ten cattle and horses here.

The raised floor to the south is laid out in three rows of rooms. The row beside the earthen floor has the shikidai at the front, a small two-mat room called the nebeya, a large board-floored daidoko behind it, and a scullery at the back. The daidoko has two Irori hearths, front and rear, and a stone set out for an oil lamp. The middle row holds the family room and a storage room, and the south row, the most formal, runs through three reception rooms. Those rooms have Nageshi rails around the walls, a decorative alcove in the innermost room, and an Osa-ranma transom between the inner and middle rooms.

The frame is what impresses most. Posts around the daidoko are eight sun (about 24 centimeters) square and tied together with deep beams, and in the family room and outer reception room some beams are more than two shaku (about 60 centimeters) deep. The town notes that most posts are chestnut, with some cedar and zelkova, and that pine was used for the great beams of the reception rooms. In the roof space, squared and round-trimmed beams are laid in two tiers, posts stand at every bay tied with tie-beams, and sasu rafters rise above them. The ridge is a turf ridge planted with grass, topped by a smoke vent.

The storehouse is a two-story fireproof building of the Dozo-zukuri type, 11.5 meters by 8.6 meters, with a separate gabled roof of sheet metal set over the earthen structure and a canopy over the south door. The walls are finished in white Shikkui plaster above a washed-aggregate mortar base, and the west end of the ground floor is an earthen-floored miso room. The agency's detailed commentary dates it to around 1883, based on ink inscriptions.

Visiting the Former Hoonokidate Family Residence: Closed for Restoration

The Former Hoonokidate Family Residence is closed to the public from August 1, 2025 until September 30, 2030 (planned) while it undergoes major restoration. Ichinohe Town explains that no large-scale repairs had been done since the roof was rethatched in 1993; leaks were rotting the structural timbers, uneven settlement was distorting the building, and the risk of collapse had grown. Work began in fiscal 2024 and includes partially dismantling the house.

Before the closure, entry was free and the house was open 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Official pages do not say how much of the building can be seen from outside the site during the works. The town says it will post progress updates on its website, so check with the Ichinohe Board of Education's cultural properties section before you go.

The address is 20-1 Aza-Hoonokidate, Kozuya, Ichinohe-machi. According to the Tohoku Tourism Promotion Organization, the house is about 35 minutes on foot or 5 minutes by car from Kozuya Station on the IGR Iwate Galaxy Railway, and about 10 minutes by car from the Ichinohe Interchange on the Hachinohe Expressway. Opening hours and the photography policy after reopening should be confirmed in the town's announcement at that time.