Kodama Family Residence

What the Kodama Family Residence Is

The Kodama Family Residence (児玉家住宅, Kodama-ke Jutaku) is a Meiji-era silk farmer's compound in the Wa district of Tomi City, Nagano Prefecture, begun in 1893 and finished in 1910, whose 12 structures were entered on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2000. The registration was made on 26 September of that year and announced on 11 October, under the consecutive numbers 20-0077 to 20-0088.

The compound sits on the lower slope of a southwest-facing hillside looking out toward the Chikuma River. Its south side faces the old Matsushiro to Netsu highway, and along that road a stone retaining wall carries an earthen fence, a storehouse and the main gate in one continuous front. The owner is a private company, Yamatama, and the buildings are still lived in.

Seventeen Years of Building

The Kodama family had long been established in the Higashiueda neighbourhood, and from the early Meiji years they brewed miso and soy sauce. When Kodama Hikosuke, who died in 1922, set up a retirement branch household, he laid out a new compound on the slope behind the main family home. Tomi City records the start of work in 1893 and a completion ceremony in 1910. Counting the fields and bamboo groves, the property covers about 2,000 tsubo, of which roughly 900 tsubo is the walled compound itself.

Seventeen years of work means the 12 buildings did not go up together. The dates in the national register fall into three waves. The storehouse, row house, miso room and drying room, front gate, west gate, west wall and south wall stonework belong to about 1901; the main house to about 1906; the silkworm rearing house, east gate and north wall to about 1910. Only the stable is later, built in the early Showa era. The family walled and enclosed the site first, then set the house and the silk rooms inside it.

Those years coincide almost exactly with the period when raw silk carried the rural economy of Nagano. The scale of the compound belongs to that moment: a brewing business in the main house, silkworms in the branch house, and enough surplus to build slowly and well.

A Castle Front on a Country Road

The first thing a visitor sees is stonework. From the west end of the front gate to the west gate, a retaining wall runs about 40 metres along the old highway, built to hold the graded slope, with three visible courses of hexagonal masonry topped by the sill stones of a wooden fence. At its southeast end stands the storehouse, whose silhouette reads like a corner turret. Its lower walls are faced with flat stones laid in the manner of masonry and finished in namako-kabe, the lattice of raised white plaster joints over dark tile.

At the southwest corner, the west gate, the west wall and the south wall stonework combine into a masugata, the right-angled entry pocket used in castle planning to break the momentum of anyone forcing the gate. The national register describes the effect along the road as that of a small castle.

Inside the front gate, the main house faces the visitor and the silkworm rearing house stands on higher ground behind it. The row house runs the length of the eastern edge, and the miso room and drying room fill the gap between the row house and the storehouse. The stable projects from the east end of the silkworm rearing house, and the east gate leads through to the back garden. The north wall closes the northwest edge, turning east partway along to meet the rear entrance of the silkworm rearing house. Walk anticlockwise from the front gate and all 12 registered structures come into view from the outside.

A House Shaped by Silkworms

The main house is a sericultural farmhouse entered on its long side, two full storeys under a gabled roof of pantiles with a raised monitor roof along the ridge. The south face is divided: a lean-to on the left, a veranda-like band on the right carried on projecting beams. Two different treatments on a single frontage are rare. The upper floor was where the silkworms lived, and the monitor roof exists to draw off the heat and damp they generated.

Behind the main house, the silkworm rearing house measures 9 bays by 4 and holds three rearing rooms of 3 by 4 bays on its upper floor. According to Tomi City, young larvae were raised on the second floor of the main house, and a cable strung between the two buildings carried mulberry leaves and worms back and forth. The difference in ground level became a delivery system.

The miso room and the drying room connect the compound to the brewing trade the family had run since the early Meiji years. In recent years the silkworm rearing house has served as a wine cellar, and the owner released a merlot from the family's own vines in 2016. The uses change; the principle that every building in this compound works for a living has not.

Visiting the Kodama Family Residence

This is a private home, not a museum. Members of the family run a café inside the compound, and its opening days, Sunday and Monday from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., are the reliable way to get through the gate. House tours are offered on those days. At other times, visits are arranged by prior request. Hours change and the café closes without much notice, so confirm before travelling.

From the road, the run of stone wall, storehouse, front gate and west gate can be seen at any hour, and photographing the exterior from the public road raises no difficulty. For the interior and the garden, ask when you are shown around. People live here, and the visit should be conducted on those terms.

Tanaka Station on the Shinano Railway is the nearest rail access. The compound lies about 2.7 kilometres north of the station, roughly 40 minutes on foot. Tomi City's scheduled bus service on the Wa route runs from Tanaka Station toward Higashiueda and Wa Elementary School, but only on weekday mornings and evenings, with no service on weekends or public holidays. Since the café opens on Sundays, when that bus does not run, a taxi from the station or a car is the practical choice. By road it is about 10 minutes from the Tobu Yunomaru interchange on the Joshinetsu Expressway. There is parking in front of the compound, with room for only a few cars.