Hiramatsu Family Residence

An Obuse Farmstead Registered in 8 Parts

The Hiramatsu Family Residence (平松家住宅, Hiramatsu-ke Jūtaku) is a farmstead in Obuse, Kamitakai District, Nagano Prefecture, built up between the late Edo period and 1916, whose 8 buildings were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 28 October 2011.

The 8 are the main house, a small parlor, a north storehouse, a south storehouse, the kurumaya (a former water mill), a silkworm rearing house, a barn, and a single long outbuilding holding an outdoor toilet, a charcoal shed and a work shed. Living quarters, a room for guests, fireproof stores and buildings for farm work and silk production all stand on one plot. Taken together, the Hiramatsu Family Residence shows how a Shinano farming household enlarged its compound through the Meiji and Taisho eras.

The property is privately owned. Obuse Town's list of cultural properties gives the owner simply as "private individual".

Three Phases of Building

The dates recorded by the Agency for Cultural Affairs sort the Hiramatsu Family Residence into three phases.

The oldest group belongs to the late Edo period, sometime between 1830 and 1868: the main house at the centre of the plot, the north storehouse behind it, and the south storehouse and kurumaya on the road frontage. The shape of the compound was set by then.

The Meiji period added the working buildings. The silkworm rearing house went up in the late Meiji years (1898 to 1912) and was extended in the Taisho era, while the barn and the toilet, charcoal and work shed range both date from 1907. They filled the east side and south-east corner of the plot.

Last came the small parlor of 1916, a compact guest room joined to the south side of the main house by a covered passage.

Although the buildings span roughly 80 years, all 8 were registered on the same day under consecutive numbers, 20-0405 to 20-0412. The registration treated the compound as a whole, and every building was listed under the same criterion: contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

How the Hiramatsu Family Residence Is Laid Out

At the Hiramatsu Family Residence the main house stands in the middle of the plot facing south. The north storehouse lies behind it on an east-west axis, and the small parlor sits in front, reached by the covered passage.

The south edge of the plot meets the road. Along it, from west to east, run the kurumaya, the south storehouse and the silkworm rearing house, which fills the south-east corner. On the east side the barn stands at the centre with the toilet, charcoal and work shed range to its north, both opening westward onto the inner yard.

The ancillary buildings therefore wrap the south and east sides in an L, enclosing a yard in front of the main house. From the road it is the 3 south-side buildings that face the visitor, with the main house set back behind them.

Visiting the Hiramatsu Family Residence

The Hiramatsu Family Residence is a private home and is not open to the public. Neither Obuse Town's list nor the national database mentions open days or special viewings, so plan on seeing the buildings from the road only. There is no admission and no entry to the grounds.

Photographs taken from the road are the limit. Please avoid pointing a camera through the gate or into the yard, and do not linger along the walls; people live here.

The nearest station is Obuse on the Nagano Electric Railway Nagano Line. The residence lies to the north-west of the station, about 400 metres in a straight line, or roughly 10 minutes on foot. There is no visitor parking, so drivers should use a public car park in town and walk.

Names and Readings

Each building of the Hiramatsu Family Residence is formally named by adding the building type to the family name, as in Hiramatsu Family Residence Main House. The kurumaya alone carries a note in brackets, "former water mill", recording its original use. The toilet, charcoal shed and work shed are one building, and all 3 uses appear in its name.

Obuse Town lists the group as "Hiramatsu Family Residence, main house and 7 others".