Kawai Family Residence Main House

What Is the Kawai Family Residence Main House?

The Kawai Family Residence Main House (河合家住宅主屋, Kawai-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a late Edo-period (1751 to 1830) farmhouse on the old Tanba Kaido road in Ao Kajigamae, Nagaokakyo City, Kyoto Prefecture, extended in the mid-Meiji period (1883 to 1897) and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2011.

The Kawai Family Residence Main House stands on the east side of the road and faces west onto it. It is a single-storey timber building 13 m wide at the front, with a building area of 159 m². Of the five registered structures on the estate, it is the only one built as living quarters.

Why the Main House Was Registered

The Kawai Family Residence Main House was registered as a model of its type of design, a different criterion from the other four structures, which were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs treats it as an example of a large farmhouse of the Otokuni district. Otokuni is the old name for the strip of land west of the Katsura River at the foot of the Nishiyama hills, covering present-day Nagaokakyo, Muko and Oyamazaki on the southwest edge of the Kyoto basin. The house keeps the pattern of a substantial farmstead of that area in both its plan and its outward form.

What to Look For

Start with the roof. The main body has a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof laid with Sangawara-buki pantiles, and on the west, south and east sides deep Geya lean-to eaves run around it. A large gable with a lower skirt of eaves wrapped around its base gives this single-storey house real bulk.

At the north end of the west front a toilet and similar rooms are attached. Placing these service spaces at one end of the street side shows how the household was organized, even from outside.

Inside, the living rooms of the Kawai Family Residence Main House are set in two rows toward the north, and the northern row holds the Buddhist altar room and the formal Zashiki reception room. The garden in front of that room is enclosed by the L-shaped tsukiji wall, and beside the formal entrance (Shikidai) stands the small bamboo-roofed roji gate. The wall is late Edo and the gate Taisho, yet room, garden, wall and gate now read as one setting for receiving guests.

The official description does not say which part of the house belongs to the mid-Meiji extension.

Visiting the Kawai Family Residence Main House

The Kawai Family Residence Main House is a private home and its interior is not open; no notice of public openings could be found as of October 2026. The reception room and altar room cannot be seen.

The house can be seen behind the front gate and high wall on the road. Avoid standing directly in front of the gate, and keep photography to the exterior from the public road. The layout of the whole estate and directions are on the Kawai Family Residence page.