Yokoyama Family Residence

About the Yokoyama Family Residence

The Yokoyama Family Residence (横山家住宅, Yokoyama-ke Jūtaku) is an old family estate in Oaza Komono, Komono Town, Mie Prefecture, where a gate of the later Edo period (1751 to 1830) and a main house of the late Edo period stand among buildings of the Meiji and Showa eras; six of its structures were entered on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on April 3, 2020. The family presents the estate under the name Komono Yokoyama Teien, the Komono Yokoyama Mansion Garden.

It sits on the alluvial fan that spreads east of Mount Gozaisho in the Suzuka Mountains. According to Komono Town, the Yokoyama settled here in 1564, served the Komono domain as intendants (daikan) in the Edo period, and later produced village mayors and a member of the national House of Representatives.

The house began as the seat of a domain official and became, after the war, a weekend retreat for a family that had moved its base to Nagoya. The spread of building dates, from the late 18th century to the 1960s, tracks those changing roles.

Six Registrations, Two Criteria

All six structures of the Yokoyama Family Residence were registered on the same day, April 3, 2020, as register nos. 24-0276 to 24-0281.

They fall under two different criteria. The main house, the shoin and connecting corridor, the former clinic and the storehouse were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape. The Jinjitsuan tea house and the main gate were registered as models of design. On one property, buildings that hold the scene together stand beside buildings valued as examples of form.

The garden around them was registered separately on March 10, 2020, as a Registered Monument under the name Yokoyama-shi Teien.

How the Estate Is Laid Out

The plot is a rough rectangle, long from east to west. Komono Town describes the main house at the center, the shoin to its west linked by a covered corridor, the storehouse to the north, the former clinic to the east, and the Jinjitsuan tea house to the southwest. The main gate is on the south side, a little east of center, and a path of cut stone runs diagonally from the gate to the front door of the main house.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs database dates the buildings roughly as follows, oldest first.

• Main gate: later Edo period (1751 to 1830), repaired around 1965
• Main house: late Edo period (1830 to 1868), altered in 1919, extended in the early Showa period and around 1965
• Storehouse: late Edo period (1830 to 1868), repaired around 1919 and in 2016
• Jinjitsuan: mid-Meiji period (1883 to 1897), moved around 1952 and again around 1968
• Former clinic: late Meiji period (1898 to 1912), altered in 1945
• Shoin and connecting corridor: around 1968

The shoin, the youngest building, went up in 1968, the same year the estate took its present form.

The 1968 Remaking and Shigemori Mirei's Garden

The Yokoyama Family Residence owes its present arrangement to work done in 1968. In an essay for Issue 34 of the Komono Cultural Properties Newsletter, published by the Komono Town Board of Education, family member Yokoyama Yoji explains that the head of the house, then running a hospital in Nagoya, pulled down an old wing and garden, built the new shoin, and brought the Jinjitsuan tea house from Nagoya.

For the garden he went to Shigemori Mirei (1896 to 1975), one of the leading garden designers of the 20th century. The same essay records that Shigemori visited Komono in January to look at the main house and the gate, that work began in February, and that it was finished in early June. The owner asked for a garden shaped around the character 心, heart, and Shigemori placed an island in that form at the center of the dry landscape garden in front of the house.

There are four gardens: the entrance court from the gate to the front door, the front garden south of the main house and shoin, the rear garden to the north, and the tea garden (roji) that belongs to Jinjitsuan. The rear garden is divided by 10 diagonal bands with red and white sand laid alternately between them. The stone-paved drainage channel beneath the main gate was also laid during this work.

Visiting

The Yokoyama Family Residence is not open on a regular basis. The owner's official site says plainly that people who turn up without notice cannot be shown around; visits are by reservation only, on the days when events are held.

There are a few chances each year. The estate is included in tours run by travel companies and by the Komono Town Tourism Association, and the owner holds small events of his own. For 2026 the site announced a session for 5 people who sit in the shoin and look at the garden for 120 minutes, with a fee of 5,000 yen and photography allowed. Check the owner's site for dates and how to apply.

The house stands in a residential neighborhood, and the owner notes that some people drive up and wander around the outside of the property; he asks visitors to respect the neighbors. The nearest station is Naka-Komono on the Kintetsu Yunoyama Line, about 450 meters from the Yokoyama Family Residence, or roughly a 6-minute walk.