Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence) Main House

What the Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence) Main House Is

The Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence) Main House (瑞穂酢（大西家住宅）主屋, Ōnishi-ke Jūtaku Omoya) is a two-storey timber dwelling of the early Taisho era (1912 to 1918) in Nakamachi, Kashihara City, Nara Prefecture, entered on the register of Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 27 February 2023. It is the home of the Onishi family, rice vinegar brewers, and stands behind the gatehouse that opens onto the street to the north. With a building area of 228 square metres, it is the largest of the eleven structures listed on the site.

The roof is a gable, Kirizuma-zukuri, covered in pantiles, Sangawara-buki, and the house is entered on its long side, the arrangement called Hirairi. It has been repaired often. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records work in 1963, 1968, 1982 and 2019, the marks of a house that has stayed in daily use for a century.

It is not the first house on the plot. The agency's notes say the family's inner storehouse of 1891 went up before the brewing buildings and before the main house was rebuilt, so the Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence) Main House replaced an earlier dwelling in the early Taisho years.

Why the Main House Was Listed

The Main House was registered as a model of form. Only two of the eleven Onishi structures were listed on that criterion, this house and the North Storehouse, one from the domestic side of the compound and one from the brewery.

The official description starts with the plan. It is a sanretsu rokumadori layout: six rooms set out in three rows of two, the pattern of a farmhouse. Onto that rural frame the builders added a formal entrance with a raised step, the Shikidai, on the north side, and a broad board-floored room, the hiroshiki, projecting south from the earth-floored work area, the Doma, that fills the eastern half.

The second point is structure. The house makes heavy use of through-columns, single posts that run unbroken through both storeys, and the timber throughout is of high quality. The agency describes the building as a large house built without sparing expense. Long, straight posts cost money, and in them you can read how much a vinegar brewer of the early Taisho years was prepared to spend on his home.

What to Look For

The approach to the Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence) Main House comes in two stages. A guest passed through the doors of the gatehouse on the north street, then through a middle gate that closes off the formal garden of the main house, and only then reached the shikidai entrance. The double threshold separated everyday comings and goings from the reception of visitors.

The formal entrance faces north, toward the street. The more private face of the house looks south: the two photographs in the national database show the south elevation and the tokonoma alcove of the innermost reception room. Ceremony on the street side, ease on the garden side.

The eastern earth-floored hall is where the house most clearly belongs to a working business. The hiroshiki opens off its south side, probably serving as a place where people and goods passed between the work floor and the family rooms.

Visiting the Main House

The Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence) Main House is the family's home and is closed to the public. The owner's website carried no information on visits when checked on 17 September 2026, and there is currently no way to see the reception rooms or the alcove.

Because the house sits behind the gatehouse, the street view is likely limited to part of its large roof rising above the gate. The middle gate and the shikidai entrance are inside the enclosure and cannot be seen from outside. If you stop to look, stand on the far side of the road rather than in front of the gate.