Former Ueda Family Residence (Muko)

About the Former Ueda Family Residence (Muko)

The Former Ueda Family Residence (旧上田家住宅, Kyū Ueda-ke Jūtaku) is a farmhouse compound in Kaidecho, Muko City, Kyoto Prefecture, built in 1910, whose main house, annex, inner storehouse, outer storehouse, and middle gate and wall were registered as five Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on March 29, 2019. The compound stands on the site of the imperial residence of Nagaoka Palace, the palace at the heart of the short-lived capital Nagaoka-kyō, and has been owned by Muko City and open to the public since November 23, 2021.

Muko City presents the Former Ueda Family Residence as a farmhouse of the traditional type found on the edges of Japanese cities, finished to an unusually refined standard. The earthen-floored kitchen of the main house still has its six-burner cooking range, and the tatami rooms and storehouses are now rented out for exhibitions, tea gatherings, and talks.

A different property with the same Japanese name exists in Minami-Alps City, Yamanashi Prefecture. This page covers the five registrations in Kaidecho, Muko.

A Move of 190 Meters in 1942

According to Muko City, the main house and the two storehouses of the Former Ueda Family Residence were built in 1910 on a plot about 190 meters east of the present site. When a new line planned by the national railways was routed through that land, the family moved the three buildings west and rebuilt the compound here in 1942. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the same dates for the three buildings: built around 1910, relocated around 1942.

The annex and the middle gate and wall were added at the time of the move. The city words this carefully, saying the annex appears to have been newly built when the household relocated; the national database dates the annex and the gate and wall to around 1942. The compound you see is therefore a Meiji-era house and two Meiji storehouses, regrouped and completed with early Shōwa additions.

In 2016, as land over the Nagaoka Palace site was being brought into public ownership, the former owners donated the buildings to Muko City. All five were registered together on March 29, 2019, under the consecutive numbers 26-582 to 26-586, each for contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

How the Five Registrations Sit on the Plot

Reading the descriptions in the national database, the layout of the Former Ueda Family Residence is as follows.

• The main house stands in the middle of the plot facing south. It is a single-story building with a gabled roof of interlocking pantiles and a building area of 168 square meters.
• The annex, two stories high, is joined to the back of the main house. Its building area is 39 square meters.
• The inner storehouse sits just west of the annex, also against the back of the main house, in the northwest corner of the plot. Its building area is 15 square meters.
• The outer storehouse stands toward the east side of the plot, facing west. It combines a rice store and a tool store under one line of roofs, with a building area of 44 square meters.
• The middle gate and wall enclose the front garden of the main house on the east, west, and south. The gate opens near the north end of the east wall, and the walls run 27 meters in total.

The main house, annex, and inner storehouse form one continuous block along the north side, so you can walk from the tatami rooms to the inner storehouse along the veranda. The outer storehouse, set apart to the east, handled the work of the farm. The national description credits the gate and wall with giving the front of the main house its formal, dignified bearing.

A Farmhouse on an Eighth-Century Palace

Emperor Kanmu moved the capital to Nagaoka-kyō in 784, and its palace complex, Nagaoka Palace, lay within what is now Muko City. The emperor's private residence, the dairi, was ringed by a covered double corridor with an earthen wall running down its center.

The plot of the Former Ueda Family Residence lies on the south side of that inner corridor. Muko City reports that the site was designated a Historic Site in 2016, and that excavations in 2017 and 2018 confirmed the line of the inner corridor that surrounded the palace's main hall.

Colored paving in the grounds now marks where the corridor, the earthen wall, the eaves drains, and the post holes once stood. Walking around the front garden, you can trace an eighth-century palace wall under the feet of a 1910 farmhouse.

Visiting the Former Ueda Family Residence

The Former Ueda Family Residence is open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and admission is free. It closes on Mondays (when Monday is a public holiday it opens and closes on the next weekday instead), on the 1st of each month for archive work (moved to the next weekday when the 1st falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or Monday), and from December 28 to January 4. These details were checked on Muko City's pages on October 5, 2026, and may change, so confirm before you go.

The tatami rooms and kitchen of the main house, the inner storehouse, and the annex are rented out for a fee, and on evenings when a room is booked the building stays open until 8:00 p.m. The city's rental guide notes that rooms remain open to visitors during bookings, so people touring the house may pass nearby. The inner storehouse hosts seasonal exhibitions, and the main house is used for talks and performances, including kyōgen comedy.

By train, get off at Nishi-Muko Station on the Hankyu Kyoto Line and walk about 5 minutes northeast. The city's access page gives no parking information, so public transport is the reliable way to arrive.