Hirabayashi Family Residence Main House

A honmune-zukuri farmhouse on the Zenkoji Kaido

The Hirabayashi Family Residence Main House (平林家住宅主屋, Hirabayashi-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) in Hirooka Harashinden, Shiojiri City, Nagano Prefecture, is a late Edo-period house registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 27, 2018 (number 20-520). It faces west onto the old Zenkoji Kaido highway and keeps the full look of a Honmune-zukuri house, the broad gabled farmhouse type of central Nagano, crowned at the gable peak by a suzume-odori ridge ornament.

It is a single-storey timber house roofed in copper sheet, 16 metres wide and 13 metres deep, with a gable roof and its entrance on the gable end, a form known as Tsumairi. The building area is 182 m². It was renovated in 1996.

Two other houses in Nagano Prefecture carry the identical registered name, one in Sasaga, Matsumoto, and one in Omachi. They belong to different families and are separate registrations.

A village headman's house that hosted the emperor

According to Shiojiri City, the Hirabayashi family is said to descend from a retainer of the warlord Takeda Shingen, and moved here in the Kanbun era (1661 to 1672) to serve as village headman, or Shōya. An ink inscription dated 1867 on the box staircase suggests the house was built around then, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs likewise dates it to the end of the Edo period.

On June 24 and 25, 1880, when Emperor Meiji toured the region, the Hirabayashi Family Residence Main House served as one of his rest stops along the route.

From the formal entrance to the inner reception room

The raised living area was originally laid out as two rows of four rooms. The sequence from the Shikidai formal entrance to the lower reception room and on to the upper reception room survives well, a progression of increasingly formal rooms suited to a family that held village office.

From outside, the thing to look at is the west gable facing the road. The suzume-odori, a stylised ornament said to resemble dancing sparrows, sits atop the bargeboards of the great gable and gives the house its commanding front. The Agency registered the Hirabayashi Family Residence Main House as a building that contributes to the historic landscape, praising the way the property presents itself to the street.

Visiting and getting there

The Hirabayashi Family Residence Main House is a private home, and as of October 2026 there is no public opening on record. The grounds and interior cannot be visited, but the house faces the Zenkoji Kaido, so the exterior can be seen from the road. Keep stops short and be considerate of the residents and neighbours if taking photographs.

The nearest station is Hirooka on the JR Shinonoi Line; the house stands about 350 metres north of the station in a straight line. There is no visitor parking, so it is best reached by train and on foot.