Kawai Genshichiro Family Residence Main House

What Is the Kawai Genshichiro Family Residence Main House?

The Kawai Genshichiro Family Residence Main House (河合源七郎家住宅主屋, Kawai Genshichirō-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a large mid-Meiji Machiya townhouse in Kitayagi-cho, Kashihara City, Nara Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on November 2, 2009. Nara Prefecture dates it to the late 1890s. It faces west onto the Shimotsumichi, an ancient highway, and forms the centerpiece of the estate's street front.

The core block measures 7.9 meters along the street and about 13 meters in depth, under a gabled roof of interlocking Sangawara-buki tiles. Wings holding an entrance hall, a Buddhist altar room, reception rooms and a bath and laundry are attached to it, bringing the total building area to 292 square meters.

Why It Was Registered

The Kawai Genshichiro main house was registered as a structure that contributes to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a large townhouse with a tall, weighty exterior. Nara Prefecture adds that, standing beside the main house of the related Kawai family to the north, it gives the old road an elegant, unbroken frontage.

That frontage is the point. Both the ground floor and the upper floor carry deep eaves on projecting beams in the Degeta-zukuri manner. Below, the ground floor is fronted by Degōshi projecting lattices and lattice doors; above, the wall is sealed in Shikkui plaster and pierced by Mushiko-mado slit windows. It is a Meiji merchant's street face that has come down with little alteration.

Single Storey or Two?

The national database lists the Kawai Genshichiro Family Residence Main House as a single-storey wooden building in its structure field, yet its own description calls it a Tsushi-nikai, a house with a low attic floor under the roof. Nara Prefecture's report does the same, while Kashihara City simply calls it 2-storey. A low tsushi attic is often recorded as single-storey in registration forms, which likely explains the difference. The depth is also given as about 13 meters by the national database and 12.8 meters by the prefecture.

What to Look For

Two Tiers of Deep Eaves

The first thing to notice is how far the eaves reach out over the street. On both floors, bracket arms project from the posts to carry a beam at their tips, and the two layers of roof edge throw a double band of shadow across the facade. Timber lattices below and white plaster above split the front cleanly into two halves.

A Plan That Runs Deep

According to Nara Prefecture, the core of the house has three rooms in a row along the north side, from the shop room at the front through a middle room to the kitchen, while on the south side a tall, open earthen passage runs from the entrance to the back. Off the north face, beside a small courtyard reached through the guest entrance, lie the formal entrance and the altar room, and beyond them 3 reception rooms step back in a staggered line. The innermost pair is raised as a dais, a touch of Meiji formality the prefecture singles out.

Trade at the front and south, guests to the north and rear: the Kawai Genshichiro main house separates the two worlds in the way large merchant townhouses were meant to.

How to Visit

The interior of the Kawai Genshichiro Family Residence Main House is not open for sightseeing (checked September 27, 2026). The owner, Tsuchihashiya Genshichi Co., Ltd., rents the house as a studio for photo and film shoots by reservation, and only those bookings give access to the shop room, earthen passage, reception rooms and courtyard.

The facade can be seen from the Shimotsumichi. To take in both tiers of eaves and the slit windows at once, cross to the west side of the road rather than standing under the house. The guest entrance and inner storehouse flank it to the north and the boundary wall to the south, so walking the frontage from north to south shows the whole composition.

Photographing the exterior from the street is fine, but please do not point a camera through the lattices into the rooms.