Sawamura Family Residence Main House

A Japanese House with a Western Wing

The Sawamura Family Residence Main House (澤村家住宅主屋) is the main house of a Japanese home with a Western-style wing of 1935 in Takaokacho Ko, Tosa City, Kochi Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on November 8, 2004 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a single-storey timber house with a tiled roof and a building area of 175 square metres; registration number 39-0166.

Where the Two Houses Cross

The main house is 9 bays long and 4 and a half bays deep, built as a Japanese house with a hip-and-gable roof of pantiles (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Like traditional houses of the area, it is made up of raised living rooms and the kamaya, the kitchen side of the house (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Between those two parts, a Western-style wing with a steep gabled roof of French tiles cuts across the building, and this is what makes the house unusual (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The gable of the Western wing crosses the ridge of the Japanese roof at a right angle.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency singles out the unusual way a Western wing is crossed into a traditional Japanese house, and values it as a rare survival of a home where a former emigrant to the United States brought a Western way of life back to Tosa; it was registered as a model of design.

What to Look For

Look for the meeting of the two roofs: the Japanese hip-and-gable roof and the steep gable of the Western wing, laid with French tiles (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The change in tile and pitch shows from outside where the Japanese house ends and the Western wing begins.

Visiting

No official information on interior access was found, and the published records do not describe the layout or use of the Western wing. Keep to the exterior; how much of the house can be seen from the street has not been confirmed.