Takahashi Family Residence (Former Takahashi Genjiro House)

A businessman's estate on Obi's merchant street

The Takahashi Family Residence (高橋家住宅), known locally as the Former Takahashi Genjiro House (旧高橋源次郎家, Kyū Takahashi Genjirō-ke), is a mid-Meiji estate built between 1883 and 1896 at 5-4077 Obi, Nichinan City, Miyazaki Prefecture, and its five buildings were listed as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 10 September 2010.

The Takahashi Family Residence faces south onto Honmachi-dori, the street where the merchants of the Obi castle town kept their shops, and stands roughly halfway along it. The estate was built by Takahashi Genjirō (高橋源次郎), an Obi entrepreneur who sat in the House of Peers. Tourist information usually calls it the Former Takahashi Genjiro House, and its street address today is 5-2-12 Obi.

The Nichinan City Tourism Association describes Genjirō as a pillar of the prefecture's business world: he served two terms in the House of Peers as a high taxpayer and held board and president posts at banks. His family's ties to the city reach beyond this house. Land he owned in Hoshikura was donated to Nichinan City in 1951 and has been used as Chikkoen since 1957.

How the five buildings of the Takahashi Family Residence are laid out

The plot covers 1,042.93 square metres, according to a 2010 local news report. Reading the Agency for Cultural Affairs descriptions together, the main house fills the south-west corner beside the street. East of it, the detached annex and kitchen runs north along the east boundary, and the east storehouse stands beyond the kitchen, linked to it by an eave. The north edge holds the west storehouse and, next to it on the east, the barn.

The main house was registered as a model of design, and the other four buildings for their contribution to the historic landscape, so all five are Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (buildings). Each is dated to the mid-Meiji period, and the main house also has a recorded remodelling in 1915.

Nichinan TV reported in 2010 that a roofed wall separates the garden seen from the reception rooms from the yard behind, keeping the barn and other service buildings out of sight. The same report says a two-storey shop once stood south-east of the main house on the street, and that a 3.48-metre strip of the plot became roadway when Honmachi-dori was widened in 1975.

The Obi Castle Town Preservation Society regards the main house as one of the early Obi homes to switch from thatch to tile. When you look at the Takahashi Family Residence, the clear split between the formal house at the front and the working buildings at the back is the key to reading how each structure was made.

Opening the Takahashi Family Residence, and the current closure

The Takahashi Family Residence was opened for a special viewing between 20 and 28 February 2010, when the city asked for opinions on its future care and use. Nichinan TV reported at the time that the owner, a great-grandson of Genjirō, was to give the property to Nichinan City free of charge. The Obi Castle Town Preservation Society records that the house opened on 1 April 2011 as one of the historic facilities of Obi Castle.

It has been closed since 1 August 2023. Nichinan TV reported that heavy rain had caused leaks in the main house, the barn and other buildings, with damage showing across the site, and that every building except the main house was already off-limits just before the closure. The city's Tourism and Sports Division said repairs could not begin at once because the buildings are national cultural properties, and that no reopening date had been set.

As of September 2026, both the Preservation Society and the tourism association still list the house as closed.

Getting to the Takahashi Family Residence

During the closure, visitors cannot enter the grounds of the Takahashi Family Residence or see inside any of the five buildings, and the wall along Honmachi-dori limits the view from the street. The Nichinan City Tourism and Sports Division (0987-27-3315) is the listed contact for news on reopening.

The Obi Castle Town Preservation Society puts the walk from JR Obi Station on the Nichinan Line to the castle town at about 15 minutes. By car the town is about 10 minutes from Nichinan-Togo Interchange on the Higashi-Kyushu Expressway and about 40 minutes from Miyazaki Airport. The house lies just under 1 km west-south-west of the station in a straight line, and about 300 metres south of the Ote-mon Gate of Obi Castle.

Drivers can use the Obi Castle tourist car park. Ordinary cars park free, while buses and other vehicles of medium size or larger pay 1,000 yen each.