Nakai Family Residence (Gose)

Nakai Family Residence (Gose)

The Nakai Family Residence (中井家住宅) in Minaminakamachi, Gose City, Nara Prefecture, is a townhouse compound whose main house dates from 1792; it and two later buildings, a parlor wing and a storehouse, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on October 2, 2007 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Nara Prefecture lists the set as the Nakai Family Residence Main House and two others.

The main house faces east onto Minaminakamachi street. The parlor wing joins its west side at the north end, and the storehouse stands just to the south (Agency for Cultural Affairs), so the compound grows back and sideways from a single street front.

A Townhouse in Old Gose

Minaminakamachi belongs to Gose-machi, the old town of Gose, where the early modern street plan still holds. A basic plan for central Gose, drawn up in 2017, describes the town as the castle town of the Kuwayama lords that also grew as a market town and a temple town, and notes that its blocks, moat and back-lot drains sit where a land survey map of 1742 placed them.

The same plan worries that rebuilding and piecemeal repairs are changing the streetscape, and illustrates the point with a photograph of the registered Nakai house as a townhouse that has kept its old face. The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out the black and white plasterwork of the main house as a distinctive contribution to the street.

Three Buildings, Three Dates

The three buildings were registered on the same day with consecutive registration numbers, 29-0122 to 29-0124, all for their contribution to the historic landscape (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

• Nakai Family Residence Main House (29-0122): 1792. Single-storey timber with a tiled roof and a building area of 130 square metres; a townhouse 6 and a half ken wide and 5 ken deep, with black plaster on the low attic storey and white plaster under the eaves
• Nakai Family Residence Parlor Wing (29-0123): early Taisho era. Single-storey timber with a tiled roof and a building area of 51 square metres; a 10-mat sukiya-style reception room with alcove, shelves and built-in desk, and an 8-mat anteroom
• Nakai Family Residence Storehouse (29-0124): 1916. A 2-storey earthen-walled storehouse with a tiled roof and a building area of 32 square metres; white plaster with namako tilework along the north base, and rice storage in the west half of the ground floor

A late 18th-century house, then a reception wing and a storehouse added in the Taisho era: the compound shows how a Gose household extended its townhouse over some 120 years. Each building has its own page.

Visiting

No official information on interior visits to the Nakai Family Residence was found from the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Nara Prefecture or Gose City, and the Agency database leaves the owner field blank. Treat it as a home: look at the front from the street, and do not enter or photograph the grounds.

The nearest stations are Kintetsu Gose, the terminus of the Kintetsu Gose Line, and Gose on the JR Wakayama Line. The house lies about 500 metres south-east of either in a straight line. The two stations stand side by side, but the basic plan notes there is no direct path between them, so changing trains means a long detour.