Ikekawa Family Residence

The Ikekawa Family Residence estate

The Ikekawa Family Residence (池川家住宅, Ikekawa-ke Jūtaku) is a Japanese-style house beside the Tomio River in Nakamachi, Nara City, Nara Prefecture, where an annex and two storehouses from the early Showa period and a main house built in 1967 were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2018. The family name is read Ikekawa, not Ikegawa; both the Agency for Cultural Affairs database and Nara City give that reading.

The estate lies in farmland along the Tomio River, which flows south through the western part of the city. The main house stands toward the south of the plot and faces a prefectural road. The east storehouse sits right beside it to the east. Behind the main house, the annex occupies the middle of the north edge, and the west storehouse fills the northwest corner. Both storehouses have their doors on the south side.

Seen from the road, the arrangement is main house in front, garden and annex behind, and a storehouse to either side. The agency describes the west storehouse as setting off the garden, and the city notes that the annex has a veranda running along its garden side, so the annex and the west storehouse seem to be the buildings that frame the Ikekawa garden.

When the Ikekawa buildings went up

The four Ikekawa Family Residence buildings belong to two distinct periods. The agency dates the annex and both storehouses to the early Showa period (1926 to 1945). Only the main house, the one on the road, is postwar, completed in 1967. In other words, the buildings at the back are the older ones and the house at the front is the newest.

Every building has been worked on since. The annex was renovated in 1996, the main house in 1996 and 2012, the east storehouse in 2010, and the west storehouse in 1996 and again in 2010.

Nara City calls the main house a good example of a Japanese-style home from the opening years of the later Showa period, and says the annex and the two storehouses convey how a Nara family estate was laid out in the modern era. Prewar outbuildings joined by a house of the late 1960s: that mix of eras on a single plot is the key to reading the Ikekawa estate.

The four registered Ikekawa buildings

All four buildings of the Ikekawa Family Residence were entered on the register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on November 2, 2018, in the 91st round of registrations, under the consecutive numbers 29-0272 to 29-0275. Each was registered as contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The national Council for Cultural Affairs had recommended them on July 20 that year.

• Ikekawa Family Residence Main House: 1967, wooden, 2 stories with a single-story section, tiled roof, building area 161 square meters
• Ikekawa Family Residence Annex: early Showa period, wooden, single story, tiled roof, building area 45 square meters
• Ikekawa Family Residence East Storehouse: early Showa period, 2-story Dozo-zukuri storehouse, tiled roof, building area 19 square meters
• Ikekawa Family Residence West Storehouse: early Showa period, 2-story dozo-zukuri storehouse, tiled roof, building area 19 square meters

On the structure of the main house, Nara City's press release says simply 2 stories, whereas the agency's database records 2 stories with a single-story section. This page follows the agency.

The two storehouses match in form: both are gabled (Kirizuma-zukuri) with Sangawara-buki pantiles laid as a detached Okiyane roof, and both cover 19 square meters. Their walls, though, are finished quite differently. The east storehouse has a washed artificial-stone finish along the base of its front, while the west storehouse has a base of Namako-kabe tiles set in raised plaster. Two storehouses of the same era, each given its own face.

Visiting the Ikekawa Family Residence

The Ikekawa Family Residence is a lived-in home; the agency itself describes the main house as a dwelling. We found no notice of the buildings or grounds being open to the public as of October 2026. Please stay off the property and view the main house from the road it faces. Keep any photographs to the exterior as seen from the road, and respect the privacy of the people who live there.

The nearest railway station is Tomio on the Kintetsu Nara Line. Measured from map coordinates, the Ikekawa Family Residence is about 2.4 kilometers southeast of the station in a straight line, down the Tomio River valley. Look for a main house facing the prefectural road with several hip-and-gable roofs stacked against one another. We have not confirmed how much of the annex and storehouses behind it can be seen from the road.