The Sawamura Family Residence
The Sawamura Family Residence (澤村家住宅) in Takaokacho Ko, Tosa City, Kochi Prefecture, is a family home built in 1935; its main house, storehouse, toilet and gate were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on November 8, 2004 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The name is read Sawamura-ke jutaku.
The four carry the consecutive registration numbers 39-0166 to 39-0169. The main house and storehouse were registered as models of design, the toilet and gate for their contribution to the historic landscape (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Kochi Prefecture's list of registered buildings also gives all four under the Sawamura Family Residence in Takaokacho Ko, Tosa City.
A Japanese House with a Western Wing
The Agency describes the main house as unusual: between the raised living rooms and the kamaya, the kitchen side of a traditional local house, a Western-style wing with a steep gabled roof of French tiles cuts across the building. It values the house as a rare survival of a home where someone who had lived as an emigrant in the United States brought a Western way of life back to Tosa.
The official sources consulted do not name the owner who built it, where in America they lived or when they came home. The Agency dates all four structures to 1935.
How the Grounds Are Laid Out
According to the Agency, the storehouse stands in the southeast corner of the plot, its ridge running north to south, and the toilet sits in the northwest corner along the western boundary wall. The gate lies south of the main entrance, to the southwest of the storehouse.
A reinforced-concrete gate styled to match the Western wing shares the plot with a storehouse finished in Tosa lime plaster and banded with rain-shedding tile ledges, and a toilet plastered in the same local way (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Western design and the plastering craft of Tosa sit side by side in buildings of a single year, and that is the charm of the place. Each structure is described on its own page.
Visiting
No owner is listed in the Agency database, and no official information on public opening or interior visits was found. Visitors should keep to looking from outside and respect the quiet of a lived-in home.
The house lies about 1.3 kilometres east-southeast of Tosa City Hall as the crow flies (estimated from map coordinates).
References
- Sawamura Family Residence Main House (Database of National Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004452
- Sawamura Family Residence Storehouse (Database of National Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004453
- Sawamura Family Residence Toilet (Database of National Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004454
- Sawamura Family Residence Gate (Database of National Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004455
- Sawamura Family Residence Main House (Cultural Heritage Online, Japanese)
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/169762
- Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (Buildings) in Kochi Prefecture, Part 1: Cities (Kochi Prefecture, Japanese)
- https://www.pref.kochi.lg.jp/doc/2024031100056/
Last verified: 2026.10.20
Basic Information
| Name | Sawamura Family Residence |
|---|---|
| Location | 506-2 Takaokacho Ko, Tosa City, Kochi Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (4) |
| Coordinates | 33.49149, 133.43822 |
