Suenobu Family Residence (Former Suenobudo Clinic)

About the Suenobu Family Residence

The Suenobu Family Residence (Former Suenobudo Clinic) is a doctor's home and clinic built in 1927 in Wajiki, Geisei Village, Kochi Prefecture, whose four buildings, the main house, nagayamon gate, kamaya and storehouse, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on October 14, 1999. In Japanese it is 末延家住宅（旧末延堂医院）, read Suenobu-ke Jūtaku (Kyū Suenobudō Iin).

The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates all four buildings to 1927, which suggests the compound was laid out as a single project. Their registration numbers run without a break from 39-0003 to 39-0006, with the main house first. Kochi Prefecture's own list of registered buildings groups the four under one entry, and they are the only registered structures in Geisei Village.

A walking map published by the village calls the property the Suenobu-tei and describes the main house as a two-story timber building in a South German manner. According to the same map, it served as a hospital until 1963, which means the Suenobu Family Residence treated patients in Wajiki for more than three decades.

How the Compound Is Arranged: One Gate for the Family, Another for Patients

Read side by side, the four official descriptions reveal a carefully divided plan. The Suenobu Family Residence fronts the prefectural road (the Hao-Kotohama road) that runs north to south through Wajiki. The nagayamon stands on that road facing east, and its central opening leads straight to the domestic entrance on the east side of the main house.

Patients came another way. On the south side of the main house, a gabled projection holds the clinic entrance, and a concrete wall running south from the nagayamon ends at a separate clinic gate. Family and guests used the old-style gate; the sick used the southern one. The division between home and practice begins at the property line.

Service buildings fill the back of the lot. The kamaya, a long kitchen and servants' wing, follows the northern boundary behind the main house, and the storehouse closes the northwest corner. North of the nagayamon, a roofed wall repeats the kamaya's design, so the street front reads as gate and wall with the Western-style house rising behind.

A Western Clinic Among Traditional Outbuildings

What makes the Suenobu Family Residence worth a look is the mix. The main house is clad in horizontal weatherboards and holds both the consulting rooms and the family's living space. The three outbuildings are conventional Japanese construction: a single-story gate under a tiled hipped roof, a kitchen wing lined with slatted windows, and a two-story earthen-walled storehouse.

The registration criteria differ too. The main house was registered as a building that "serves as a model of design," and the national database even files it under culture and welfare rather than housing. The gate, kitchen wing and storehouse were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape. Together they show how a country doctor of the early Showa era arranged a Western-style practice at the center of a traditional household.

Visiting: Access and Viewing Conditions

The Suenobu Family Residence (Former Suenobudo Clinic) is a private home, and there is no notice of public opening. None of the four buildings can be entered and the grounds are closed, so viewing is limited to the exterior from the prefectural road. Please keep your visit quiet and brief. No visitor parking is advertised.

The nearest station is Wajiki (和食駅) on the Tosa Kuroshio Railway's Gomen-Nahari Line, about 300 meters from the house in a straight line. The village map directs rail travelers to change at JR Kochi Station or Gomen Station for the Gomen-Nahari Line; by car it puts Geisei about an hour from Kochi City.

The village guide group Geisei Mura-aruki includes the Suenobu-tei on its Wajiki and Kotogahama walking course, about 3 kilometers and roughly two hours. In the pamphlet current as of March 2019, a guide cost 3,000 yen for up to five people, bookings were due 10 days ahead, and inquiries went to the Geisei Village Board of Education (0887-33-2400, weekdays). Fees and availability may have changed, so check before you go.