A Meiji Townhouse Facing North onto the Street
The Main House of the Kaimasu Residence (貝増家住宅主屋, Kaimasu-ke Jūtaku Shuoku, also given as the Kaimasu Family Residence Main Building) is an early Meiji-period townhouse in Yanagiharacho, Nabari City, Mie Prefecture, dated by the Agency for Cultural Affairs to between 1868 and 1882 and entered on Japan's national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 2 May 2017. It stands in the old quarter of Nabari, a district shaped by two histories at once: a castle town under the Todo family, and a stage on the Hase Kaido highway linking Hasedera temple in Yamato with the Grand Shrine at Ise.
The house presents its long side to the street and faces north. Across the ground floor runs a screen of slender lattice, finished in bengara, the red-brown iron-oxide pigment that gives so many Kansai townhouses their particular colour under overcast light. Above it sits a tsushi-nikai, a low upper storey used historically for storage rather than living, pierced by narrow horizontal windows and plastered solid right out to the eaves.
That plastered upper band explains an apparent contradiction in the official record. The Agency for Cultural Affairs registers the structure as single-storey timber construction with a tiled roof and a footprint of 114 square metres, while its own descriptive note calls the building a tsushi-nikai townhouse. There is no conflict: the low half-storey under the eaves was never counted as a full floor, and the register follows that older convention.
Inside, a doma, the earthen-floored working space that runs through a townhouse like a covered street, occupies the western portion, with a raised roof monitor above it to draw off smoke and let in light. East of the doma four rooms are set out in the four-square plan the Japanese call ta-no-ji, after the character 田. The southeastern room, the one that looks onto the garden, carries formal alcove fittings.
Registered for What It Does to the Street
The registration cites one criterion: that the building contributes to the historic landscape of the nation (国土の歴史的景観に寄与しているもの). This is a claim about the street as much as about the house. Registration number 24-0240 was granted in the eighty-sixth round, and the Agency's note ends by describing the property simply as a dwelling that forms part of the historic townscape of the urban centre.
The record also lists an extension in 1963 and refurbishment in 2009. A building with that history would sit awkwardly under the designation system, which reserves Important Cultural Property and National Treasure status for a small number of works held under strict controls on alteration. Registration, created in 1996, was designed around a different premise. It covers buildings of roughly fifty years or more, asks owners to notify rather than seek permission before major changes, and accepts that a house lived in continuously will accumulate repairs. A lattice front kept in good order matters more to this instrument than an unaltered interior.
Nabari's old quarter earns the claim. The Todo family of Nabari, founded by Todo Takayoshi, held the town from 1636 until the Meiji Restoration across eleven generations, and the great fire of 1710 forced much of it to be rebuilt. The merchant houses that line the former highway are largely of the century and a half that followed. Individually modest, in sequence they hold the shape of the street.
A Private House, and What to See Instead
This is the point to be plain about access. The Kaimasu Residence is a private house. The Agency's record lists no owner and no managing body, the interior is not open, and there are no visiting hours, no admission and no tours. Anyone who comes to Yanagiharacho should look at the exterior from the public street and go no further; photographing a private frontage from the road is generally accepted in Japan, but pointing a lens through a doorway is not.
The lattice and the plastered upper storey read well from the pavement opposite, and morning light on a north-facing front is flat and even, which suits the fine grid of the koshi better than hard afternoon shadow.
For an interior of the same type that visitors may actually enter, the former Hosokawa Residence at 136 Shinmachi, now run as the Yanase-shuku community and tourist facility, is a short walk away. Built between the late Edo period and the early Meiji years as the Nabari branch of a pharmaceutical merchant house from Ouda in Nara, it has the same tsushi-nikai upper storey along with mushiko-mado insect-cage windows and sode-udatsu fire walls, and four of its structures were registered in 2009. It opens from 9:00 to 17:00 and houses a rotating cast of small restaurants and cafes. About fourteen minutes on foot from Nabari Station on the Kintetsu Osaka Line.
The Nabari Todo Residence, a prefecturally designated historic site, is also within walking distance. What survives is a fragment of the mansion rebuilt after the 1710 fire, perhaps a fifteenth of the original, together with a dry landscape garden and the family's arms, documents and furnishings. Admission is modest, and a combination ticket with the Natsumi Haiji exhibition hall is available. Seen after the Todo rooms, the four-square plan and the single garden-facing room of a merchant's house on the highway make a sharper kind of sense.
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Q&A
- Can visitors go inside the Kaimasu Residence Main House in Nabari?
- No. It is a private dwelling with no public opening, no admission and no tours. The exterior can be viewed from the public street, and visitors should keep to the road and avoid photographing into the property.
- When was the Kaimasu Residence Main House built and registered?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to the early Meiji period, between 1868 and 1882, with an extension in 1963 and refurbishment in 2009. It was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property on 2 May 2017 under registration number 24-0240.
- Why does the record call the Kaimasu Residence single-storey when it has an upper floor?
- The upper level is a tsushi-nikai, a low half-storey under the eaves used for storage rather than living space. By the older convention that the register follows, it is not counted as a full floor, so the structure is recorded as single-storey timber construction with a tiled roof.
- What can visitors see near the Kaimasu Residence in Nabari?
- The former Hosokawa Residence, operating as Yanase-shuku at 136 Shinmachi, is a registered townhouse of similar type that is open to the public from 9:00 to 17:00 and about fourteen minutes on foot from Nabari Station. The Nabari Todo Residence, a prefectural historic site with a dry landscape garden, is also nearby.
- What does it mean that the Kaimasu Residence is registered rather than designated?
- Registration and designation are separate systems. Important Cultural Properties and National Treasures are designated and tightly controlled. Registration, introduced in 1996, covers buildings roughly fifty years old or more, works by notification rather than permission, and is intended for structures still in everyday use.
Basic Information
| Name | Main House of the Kaimasu Residence (貝増家住宅主屋) |
|---|---|
| Location | 3339 Yanagiharacho, Nabari City, Mie Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure); registration no. 24-0240 |
| Year Designated | Registered 2 May 2017 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Single-storey timber construction, tiled roof; building footprint 114 m² |
| Owner | Not listed in the national database (private residence) |
| Public Access | Not open to the public; exterior viewing from the public street only |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Kaimasu-ke Jutaku Shuoku
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00011517
- Cultural Heritage Online: Kaimasu-ke Jutaku Shuoku
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/289303
- Nabari City: Former Hosokawa Residence, Yanase-shuku (Registered Tangible Cultural Property)
- https://www.city.nabari.lg.jp/s044/010/050/10/070/090/270/20150401085353.html
- Nabari City: The Nabari Todo Residence
- https://www.city.nabari.lg.jp/s061/010/020/000/050/201502051899.html
- Kanko Mie (Mie Prefecture Tourism Association): Nabari Todo Residence
- https://www.kankomie.or.jp/spot/3172
- Nabari City Tourism Association
- https://www.kankou-nabari.jp/?page_id=44
Last verified: 2026.08.10