Nomura Family Residence (Nahari)

The Nomura Family Residence in Nahari

The Nomura Family Residence (野村家住宅, Nomura-ke Jūtaku) is a house at Otsu 2578 in Nahari, Aki District, Kochi Prefecture, whose main house of 1922 and two stone walls from the late Meiji era were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on October 18, 2000.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the Nomura as one of the families known as 倉床, the households that gathered the domain's rice tax. That one line is all the official record says about the family. It does not explain what the duty involved or how long the Nomura held it.

The three registrations carry consecutive numbers, 39-0031 to 39-0033, all from the 26th round of registrations. The main house was listed as a building that has become a model of its type, and the two walls as structures that would not be easy to reproduce. Japan registers tangible cultural properties one structure at a time, which is why each wall counts as a property in its own right.

Other houses called Nomura Family Residence are registered elsewhere in Japan, including one in Higashiomi, Shiga Prefecture. This page adds the town name, Nahari, to keep them apart.

How the Nomura property is laid out

The main house of the Nomura Family Residence stands close to the road that runs along the east side of the plot. It is a single-storey house with a gabled roof whose ridge runs east to west, so its east gable end faces the road.

The East Stone Wall follows that gable end, running about 23 meters north from a pair of gateposts. From the gate a short curved sleeve wall leads toward the front door of the house. The South Stone Wall marks the southern edge of the plot, on the boundary with the neighboring land, and runs for 25 meters. Together the two walls enclose roughly 48 meters of the east and south sides in stone.

The ages run against the order of the names. Both walls date from the late Meiji era, while the main house was built in 1922, so the walls are older than the house behind them. The Agency's records say nothing about the house that stood here before.

Ishiguro walls in Nahari

The Agency classes both walls of the Nomura Family Residence as Ishiguro, a local kind of mortared stone wall topped with a narrow tiled roof. Several other registered houses in Nahari keep walls of the same type.

The Nomura walls are on the small side. They are about 40 cm thick and 1.6 m high, and the Agency's own description calls them a little smaller than the ishiguro found elsewhere. About 60 meters to the north (a figure calculated from map coordinates), the walls of the Mori Family Residence (Former Nomura Mokuma Residence) are 50 cm thick and 2.5 m high. Walk past both houses and the range within a single local wall type becomes plain.

That neighboring house was built as the Nahari home of the businessman Nomura Mokuma and is a separate registered property, though it shares the Nomura name. The Agency's records do not say whether this Nomura family and Mokuma were related.

Visiting the Nomura Family Residence

No public opening or interior viewing of the Nomura Family Residence has been announced. Visitors see the walls and the outside of the main house from the road on the east side. There is no official guidance on photography, but please stay outside the property and keep your hands off the walls and gate.

A local volunteer group, Nahari-ura no Kai, leads walks through the town. According to the Kochi Prefecture Tourist Guide Council, tours must be booked by the day before (seven days ahead for ten or more people), and a group of ten or more pays from 2,000 yen, with smaller parties arranged on request. The Nomura Family Residence is not named on the group's published model route, so mention it when you book if you would like to stop there.

By rail, take the Tosa Kuroshio Railway Gomen-Nahari Line to its terminus at Nahari Station. Some trains run through from Kochi Station, and the fastest rapid service takes about 1 hour 12 minutes. The house lies east-northeast of the station, about 500 meters away in a straight line on the map, or roughly a 10-minute walk. By car, allow about 90 minutes from Harimayabashi in central Kochi. We could not confirm any visitor parking. Fees, booking conditions and travel times were checked on October 16, 2026.