Misedoi Family Residence Main House

What Is the Misedoi Family Residence Main House?

The Misedoi Family Residence Main House (見世土井家住宅主屋, Misedoi-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a two-storey timber house built in 1931 in Asahi-cho, Owase City, Mie Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 4 August 2015. Under its tiled roof it covers a building area of 424 square metres, the largest footprint of anything on the Misedoi estate.

The plan runs long from east to west. At the east end, nearest the old Kumano road, the architect gathered the entrance into a Western-style composition and attached a reception room beside it. Walk west and the house turns Japanese: a sequence of tatami rooms, with a guest room finished in the refined, tea-house-inspired Sukiya-zukuri manner. Owase City credits the design to Andō Kihachirō.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the house as a high-quality modern residence with Art Deco touches in its details. Owase City places it within the Japanese-modernist style that was fashionable in the early 1930s.

The Only Structure Listed as a Model of Design

Of the nine registered parts of the Misedoi estate, the Misedoi Family Residence Main House is the only one listed under the criterion for buildings that serve as a model of design. The other eight earned their place by shaping the historic townscape; the main house was recognised for the quality of its architecture in its own right.

Start with how the house divides East and West. Only the rooms that met the outside world, the entrance and the reception room, received Western dress. Everything used for family life and formal hospitality stayed Japanese. Well-to-do households of the period often made the same split, putting a modern face toward the street while keeping the heart of the home traditional.

Then there is the plan. The sukiya guest room and the lady of the house's private room are separated by a central corridor, or Naka-roka, a feature the Agency cites as typical of its time. Rooms no longer open straight into one another; a hallway now keeps the guest's world and the family's world apart. That single corridor marks a house built while domestic life in Japan was being reorganised.

Finally, the details. The crisp lines and geometric motifs of Art Deco appear mainly in the Western wing, brought to a small fishing and timber town on the Kii coast by a family with forestry money to spend.

What to Look For

Outside, pay attention to the finish of the Western wing. The Agency's entry for the estate's main gate notes that the roadside wall was given the same coloured, rough-textured mortar as the Western part of the main house. In other words, the house's modern face was designed together with its gate and wall as one continuous front toward the road.

Inside, the highlights are the Western-style reception room, the 20-mat hall on the Japanese side, and the veranda looking onto the garden. Mie Prefecture's workation portal lists all of them as work areas, so at the Misedoi Family Residence Main House you will find people with laptops open in exactly those rooms.

As you move west from the entrance, the design shifts from the reception room's modern vocabulary to the softer timber of the sukiya rooms. Noticing where that changeover happens is the most direct way to read the architect's plan.

Visiting the Main House

The Misedoi Family Residence Main House now operates as Share Space Doimise, a members-only coworking space, and visitors who come only to see the cultural property are not admitted as a rule. Entry is possible as a coworking member or as a participant in a scheduled event (checked 17 September 2026).

From outside you can be sure of seeing only the gate and the wall. To study the house itself, joining an event is the most dependable way in.

There is no published policy on photography indoors. Because people are working in these rooms, ask the staff before taking pictures and keep other users out of the frame. Directions and entry conditions for the whole estate are covered on the Misedoi Family Residence page.