Seventy Metres of Yokohama Stonework
The front gate and stone walls of the former Kawamoto Residence (旧川本家住宅表門及び石垣, Kyū-Kawamoto-ke Jūtaku Omotemon oyobi Ishigaki) are structures of around 1933 at 1-14-2 Nishitobe-chō, Nishi Ward, Yokohama, entered in Japan's national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 15 August 2024.
Of the three registered elements on this hillside plot, these are the ones a passer-by actually meets. The main house sits back behind its screen and the storehouse hides further back still. The gate and the wall are the property's public argument, and they were built to make it.
The stone wall runs seventy metres in total, turning a right angle to enclose the east and north sides of the site. On a slope in Yokohama, a wall like this is not decoration. Ground has to be held before anything can be built on it, and the length of the retaining work explains why the house above could have the plan it has.
The gate stands on a shallow flight of stone steps at the east side of the main house entrance. Its frontage measures 1.8 metres, one ken in traditional reckoning. It is gabled and entered on the long side, roofed in sangawara pantiles, with short wing walls to left and right. The roof carries mukuri, a slight convex swelling of the slope. Japanese roofs more often curve the other way, dipping into a concave sori, and mukuri reads as softer and more domestic. On a gate this size the curve amounts to a few centimetres of deliberate correction across the whole span.
Bluff Bond and Where It Comes From
The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the wall in six characters that carry a good deal of Yokohama history: tuff, laid in buraf-zumi, with a low stone fence set on top.
Buraf-zumi, or Bluff bond, takes its name from the Bluff, the English word for the heights of Yamate across the valley where foreign residents settled after the port opened. From 1867 the roads and building plots cut into those slopes needed retaining walls, and the walls went up in a pattern in which the long face and the short end of each block alternate along every course. Brick masons would recognise it as Flemish bond translated into stone. Yokohama researchers who studied the technique in the 1980s noted that no other treaty port used it, and gave it the name it now carries. The stone was typically Bōshū-ishi, quarried across the bay in Chiba.
The Kawamoto wall is recorded as tuff, which is the family of stone Bōshū-ishi belongs to, though the primary sources do not state where these particular blocks were cut. What matters is the reach of the technique. Bluff bond is usually discussed as a Yamate phenomenon, associated with Western residents and Western houses. Here it appears in the 1930s on the opposite ridge, holding up the garden of a Japanese family building a Japanese-style house. Nishi Ward has other examples, including a wall the city links to quarters built for foreign railway engineers, and surveys of the region have logged the technique across Yokohama and the Miura Peninsula.
The registration was made on 15 August 2024 under number 14-0350, on the criterion of contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency's assessment closes on the phrase that both elements are carefully made and compose the outward face of the residence. In the register's accounting, a gate 1.8 metres wide and seventy metres of retaining wall together count as a single entry, classified not as a building but as a structure of another kind.
Looking at It Without Getting in the Way
The former Kawamoto Residence is not open to the public. It stands vacant, owned and managed by Keikyu Corporation, and at the time of registration the Agency for Cultural Affairs noted that a policy for local use was under consideration. There are no visiting hours, no admission and no access to the grounds.
The gate and wall are the exception to all of that, in the sense that they were always meant to be seen from outside. One of the two photographs in the national database is captioned as a view of the site from the lane, which is the view anyone can have. Walking the lane along the east and north sides gives the full run of the masonry and the turn where it changes direction.
Read the wall in two registers as you go. Close up, the alternation of long and short faces in each course is unmistakable once you have seen it named. Standing back, the low stone fence along the top gives the whole thing a finished edge, the sort of detail that separates a boundary treatment from a piece of civil engineering.
Tobe Station on the Keikyu Main Line is about ten minutes on foot, mostly uphill, and Hinodechō Station a similar distance over the ridge. Photography from the public road is unrestricted. The lanes are narrow, the neighbours are at home, and a tripod would be an imposition.
Nogeyama Park lies a few hundred metres west. Anyone who wants to see Bluff bond at its densest should cross to Yamate, where the technique survives along the slopes in quantity and where the city treats the walls as a landscape asset in their own right.
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Q&A
- Can the front gate and stone walls of the former Kawamoto Residence be seen from the street?
- Yes. The gate and the wall face the public lanes on the east and north sides of the plot and can be seen and photographed from the road. The property itself is closed, vacant and privately owned, so entering the grounds is not possible. The lanes are narrow residential streets, so visitors should keep out of the way of residents.
- What is the buraf-zumi masonry used in the former Kawamoto Residence stone walls?
- Buraf-zumi, or Bluff bond, is a Yokohama stone-laying method in which the long face and the short end of each block alternate along every course, resembling Flemish bond in brickwork. It is named after the Bluff, the foreign settlement at Yamate, where such retaining walls were built from 1867 onward, typically in Bōshū stone from Chiba. The Kawamoto wall is recorded as tuff.
- How large are the front gate and stone walls of the former Kawamoto Residence?
- The gate has a frontage of 1.8 metres, timber with a tiled roof, wing walls to left and right, and a flight of stone steps. The stone wall is 70 metres in total length, turning at a right angle around the east and north sides of the site, with a low stone fence along the top. Both are dated to around 1933.
- Why are the front gate and stone walls of the former Kawamoto Residence registered as one item?
- They were registered together on 15 August 2024 under a single number, 14-0350, classified as a structure of a kind other than a building, with a quantity of one. The Agency for Cultural Affairs treats them as a single composition forming the outward face of the residence, registered on the criterion of contribution to the historic landscape of the country.
- What is the mukuri on the roof of the former Kawamoto Residence front gate?
- Mukuri is a slight convex swelling given to a roof slope, the opposite of the concave sori curve seen on temple and shrine roofs. On this gate the effect is subtle and softens the profile, and it is one of the details the official assessment points to in calling the work careful.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Kawamoto Residence Front Gate and Stone Walls (旧川本家住宅表門及び石垣, Kyū-Kawamoto-ke Jūtaku Omotemon oyobi Ishigaki) |
|---|---|
| Location | 1-14-2 and adjacent lots, Nishitobe-chō, Nishi Ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure); registration number 14-0350; criterion: contribution to the historic landscape of the country |
| Year Designated | Registered and announced 15 August 2024 (107th registration round); recommended by the Council for Cultural Affairs on 15 March 2024 |
| Quantity | 1 item |
| Dimensions | Gate: timber, tiled roof, frontage 1.8 m, with wing walls to left and right and stone steps. Wall: stone, total length 70 m. Dated around 1933. |
| Owner | Keikyu Corporation |
| Public Access | Grounds closed. The gate and wall face public lanes and can be viewed and photographed from the road. |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Kyū-Kawamoto-ke Jūtaku Omotemon oyobi Ishigaki
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00015005
- Cultural Heritage Online: Kyū-Kawamoto-ke Jūtaku Omotemon oyobi Ishigaki
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/608203
- City of Yokohama: Outline of the Yamate District (on Bluff bond retaining walls)
- https://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/kurashi/machizukuri-kankyo/toshiseibi/toshin/kannaikangai/yamate/yamate.html
- City of Yokohama, Nishi Ward: Bluff bond stone wall, walking guide
- https://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/nishi/shokai/kanko/spot/sozoroaruki/sozoro45.html
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Council recommendation document of 15 March 2024 (PDF)
- https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkazai/shokai/yukei_kenzobutsu/pdf/94080301_03.pdf
Last verified: 2026.08.04