Sato Family Residence (Chohoji, Nagaokakyo)

A Village Headman's Estate in Chōhōji

The Sato Family Residence (佐藤家住宅, Satō-ke Jūtaku) in Chohoji (Chōhōji), Nagaokakyo, Kyoto Prefecture, is the estate of a family of Edo-period village headmen, and its 9 structures, the oldest a rice storehouse built in 1807, were entered together on Japan's national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2008.

According to the Kyoto association of registered-property owners, known as Kyoto Tōbunkai, the head of the household took the name Satō Kyūzaemon in every generation from 1623, and the family served as the village Shōya, or headman, until the end of the shogunate. Farming was only part of the living. Together with other farmers along the Tanba Kaidō road, the Satō household formed a pack-horse association, the Nishioka Umamochi Nakama, and ran a carting business moving goods by horse. The estate that supported both roles still stands largely intact on a corner of Chōhōji.

Ink inscriptions on timbers in the storehouses at the north of the property carry dates from the Bunka and Kaei eras. On that evidence the storehouses are thought to have been rebuilt one after another between the late Edo period and the Meiji era, with the main house going up as part of the same long programme of building. The Sato Family Residence was assembled over more than a century, not in a single campaign.

The Gatehouse, the House and the Row of Kura

The layout of the Sato Family Residence is easiest to follow walking south to north.

At the east end of the southern boundary, facing the street, stands a Nagayamon, a gatehouse with rooms built into it. A roofed earthen wall of the kind called tsuiji runs west from the gate along the south and west sides, and a short stretch of the same wall closes the south end of the east side. Through the gate, the Main House faces south at the centre of the lot. The yard in front of its earth-floored entrance is the working forecourt; a small roji gate and a garden wall divide it from the garden laid out before the formal rooms.

The storehouses, or kura, gather behind the Main House. The Household Goods Storehouse stands to the northwest, with the New Storehouse just north of it, both with their ridges running north to south. Along the northern edge, the West and East Rice Storehouses sit end to end with their ridges running east to west. A high wall faced in charred cedar boards turns the northeast corner, linking the tsuiji wall on the east side with the East Rice Storehouse and sealing the perimeter.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to the stepped ridgelines of the two rice storehouses and the gable end of the New Storehouse as giving the estate a varied, lively profile. Gate, walls and kura form the outer ring, with the house and gardens inside it: a clear example of how the leading farming families of a village arranged their homes.

What Was Registered, and When It Was Built

All 9 structures of the Sato Family Residence were registered on 23 October 2008 in the 61st round of registrations, under numbers 26-0323 through 26-0331 (26 is the code for Kyoto Prefecture). In the order the Agency dates them:

• 1807 (Bunka 4): the West Rice Storehouse, the oldest securely dated building, with traditional round-and-flat tiles on its south slope
• Late Edo period: the Nagayamon Gate, its plan bent slightly to follow the shape of the lot
• Edo period: the Tsuiji Earthen Wall, 68 metres long in 2 sections
• Kaei era (1848 to 1854): the Household Goods Storehouse, a long, narrow 2-storey kura 9.7 metres in length
• End of the Edo period: the East Rice Storehouse, built against the east end of the West Rice Storehouse
• Early Meiji era: the Main House, and the Roji Gate and Garden Wall
• 1910 (Meiji 43): the New Storehouse, the smallest of the 2-storey kura
• Early Shōwa era: the High Wall, 40 metres long

Two registration criteria were applied. The Main House was listed as a model of its type, a large farmhouse reaching back to the start of Japan's modern era. The other 8 were listed for their contribution to the historic landscape, as the gate, walls and storehouses that give the estate and its village their character.

The owner field is blank for all 9 in the Agency's database, and Kyoto Tōbunkai describes the property as a private home.

Visiting and Getting There

The Sato Family Residence is a private home that is still lived in, and it is not open to the public. Kyoto Tōbunkai lists it as closed, so the grounds and interiors cannot be visited.

What can be seen from outside is the street frontage: the Nagayamon Gate, the tsuiji wall, and the High Wall with its stone base on the street side. The Main House, the gardens and the Household Goods Storehouse are inside the walls and hard to make out. Please keep photography to the public road, and avoid peering through the gate or lingering in front of the house.

The nearest station is Nagaoka-tenjin on the Hankyu Kyoto Line. The Sato Family Residence lies about 2 kilometres west of the station, roughly a 30-minute walk (an estimate based on map distance). A taxi from the station is the simpler option. The last stretch runs through residential lanes, so check the route on a map before setting out.