Hamada Family Residence

About the Hamada Family Residence

The Hamada Family Residence (濱田家住宅, Hamada-ke Jūtaku) is a group of four merchant buildings on the old road through Nahari-cho, Aki District, Kochi Prefecture: the main house and storehouse of Masudaya, a sake brewery and pawnshop said to have opened in 1795, were registered as Tangible Cultural Properties in 2000, and the family's store and brick storehouse followed in 2003.

All four are Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan. The first pair was registered on October 18, 2000 under the name "Hamada Family Residence (formerly Masudaya)", as Nos. 39-0014 (main house) and 39-0016 (storehouse). The second pair was registered on January 31, 2003 simply as the Hamada Family Residence, as Nos. 39-0071 (store) and 39-0072 (brick storehouse).

Kochi Prefecture's list of registered buildings keeps the two pairs as separate entries. The Agency for Cultural Affairs, however, describes the store as anchoring the Nahari streetscape together with "the former sake-brewing section", which ties both pairs to the same Hamada household and its businesses. On that basis, and because the buildings stand only about 30 meters apart, this site presents all four together as the Hamada Family Residence.

A brewery at the heart of a market town

Nahari grew up where the Tosa East Road toward Muroto parted from the Noneyama Road, which crossed the mountains into Awa (today's Tokushima). Architectural historian Yoichi Miura (2005) traces how Nahari took shape in the Edo period as a zaigōmachi, a rural market town where merchants kept shop and home on the main street and served the surrounding farming villages. The Hamada Family Residence stands on Yokomachi, the street at the oldest core of that town.

The Agency's entry places the Masudaya main house on "a prime lot on the old road" and says the business, founded in 1795, brewed sake and lent money against pledges. A brewer-pawnbroker sat close to the flow of cash in a market town. Miura singles out the Hamada Family Residence, along with the nearby Nishio residence, as examples of the high-quality townhouses that occupied the center of Nahari and reflected its accumulated wealth.

Two lots, four buildings

The four registered buildings of the Hamada Family Residence sit on two adjoining lot numbers. Lot Otsu 1751 holds the Masudaya main house and storehouse; lot Otsu 1564-3 holds the store and the brick storehouse. Measured from the Agency's map coordinates, the main house and the store are about 26 meters apart, and the storehouse is about 35 meters from the store, all within one small cluster of streets.

The store occupies the northwest corner of a three-way junction in the town center, with the brick storehouse attached on its north side. The Masudaya storehouse is a long, narrow earthen storehouse that stands beside a second building the Agency calls the "large storehouse" (ōkura). That large storehouse is not registered, and number 39-0015, between the two Masudaya entries, does not appear in either the Agency's or the prefecture's list.

An Edo brewery and a Meiji shop

The four buildings fall into two periods. The Agency dates the Masudaya main house and storehouse to the late Edo period and the store and brick storehouse to the late Meiji period. Miura's paper, however, dates the main house to 1903, which does not match the Agency. We found no source that settles the question, so this site follows the Agency's dating and notes Miura's date alongside it.

Construction varies as well. The main house and the store are timber-framed with tiled roofs, the storehouse is a two-story Dozo-zukuri earthen storehouse, and the brick storehouse is two stories of brick. By building area the main house is largest at 167 square meters, followed by the store at 151, the storehouse at 83 and the brick storehouse at 34. The contrast between the white Tosa-shikkui plaster and stacked Mizukiri-gawara tiles of the Masudaya buildings and the exposed red brick of the brick storehouse gives the Hamada Family Residence its character.

Visiting: access and viewing

The Hamada Family Residence is a private home and shop, and we found no notice of public opening. Visitors cannot enter the buildings or the lots; viewing is limited to the exteriors as seen from the street. Please keep in mind that people live and work here, and avoid lingering in front of doorways.

The nearest station is Nahari, the terminus of the Tosa Kuroshio Railway's Gomen-Nahari Line. The Hamada Family Residence is roughly 400 meters from the station in a straight line, about a 6-minute walk (an estimate calculated from map coordinates). We found no information on visitor parking.

Nahari also has the Hamada Norihiro Family Residence (濱田典彌家住宅, lot Otsu 1028-1), registered separately; it is a different property on a different lot.