Okamoto Family Residence Large Annex

What Is the Okamoto Family Residence Large Annex?

The Okamoto Family Residence Large Annex (岡本家住宅大離れ, Okamoto-ke Jūtaku Ōbanare) is a 2-storey earthen-walled building of 1906, altered around 1936, standing at the rear of the Okamoto Family Residence plot in Yagicho 2-chome, Kashihara City, Nara Prefecture, and facing east; it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 29 November 2016. With a building area of 102 square meters, it is second in size only to the Store and Main House.

Seen from the street, it lies beyond the corridor, the Annex and the Inner Storehouse, at the very back of the property. A lean-to roof, or Geya, projects from its east front.

A Tatami Room Inside a Storehouse

Despite the name "annex", the Okamoto Large Annex looks from outside like a Dozo-zukuri storehouse, and most of its interior is storage. Only the southern half of the upper floor is a tatami room. No other building on the site combines storage and living space under one roof in this way.

The room is plainly finished. The ceiling is set low, and there is no Nageshi, the horizontal beam that signals formality in a Japanese reception room. Unlike the formal rooms in the main house, it was made as a private room for the family to relax in.

Small details were not neglected. The recessed pulls of the fusuma sliding panels are shaped with a chrysanthemum motif. The Agency for Cultural Affairs reads this mix of restraint and small ornament as the design of an inkyo-jo, a retirement residence: the quarters where a head of the family lived after handing the business on to an heir.

A Record of Changing Use

The Okamoto Family Residence Large Annex is the only one of the six buildings with a recorded alteration, made around 1936, roughly 30 years after it was built.

The Agency notes that the building shows how the use of the property changed over time. A late Meiji merchant house kept being adapted to the family's needs into the Showa era, and the room on the storehouse's upper floor is where that shows.

It was registered for contributing to the historic landscape. Facing east from the back of the plot, it closes the long sequence of buildings that begins at the shop on the street.

Visiting the Okamoto Large Annex

The Okamoto Family Residence Large Annex is part of a private home and is not open to the public. No occasions to see the upstairs room or the chrysanthemum door pulls could be found.

It stands at the rear of the plot and cannot be seen from the Shimotsumichi road. The layout of the site and directions are on the Okamoto Family Residence page.