Tatsumi Family Residence Main House

A Farmhouse Outside, a Reception Hall Inside

The Tatsumi Family Residence Main House (辰巳家住宅主屋, Tatsumi-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a two-story timber house built in 1915 in Hōryūji-nishi, Ikaruga Town, Nara Prefecture, and was registered as a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property on April 24, 2001. It is the core building of the Tatsumi estate, the compound of a major landowning family in Nishizato, the hamlet just west of Hōryūji temple.

The house is big. Under a tiled Irimoya-zukuri roof, it covers 410 square meters and presents a frontage of about 30 meters, far larger than any of the other 12 registered structures on the property.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a building with two faces. From outside, the Tatsumi Family Residence Main House follows the familiar form of farmhouses in this part of Nara. Inside, it was finished with carefully chosen timber in the refined idiom of Shoin-zukuri, the formal reception style that grew out of warrior-class residences.

Why It Was Registered: Formal Rooms on Two Floors

The house was registered under the criterion for buildings that would be difficult to reproduce, as registration number 29-0045, the first of the estate's 13 entries.

What the official description singles out is that both floors have Zashiki reception rooms fitted with a Tokonoma alcove and display shelves. The upper floor, in other words, was dressed for guests as carefully as the ground floor.

None of these elements is unusual on its own. The combination is what matters: formal rooms stacked on two levels inside a 30-meter farmhouse shell, built with timber and workmanship that would be hard to assemble again at this scale.

The Hub of the Compound

The Tatsumi Family Residence Main House stands in the middle of the plot, and the other buildings connect to it. A covered corridor runs south to the late Edo-period Third Storehouse and the tea room. To the northwest, the eave of the Second Storehouse forms an open passage that lets you walk under cover to the First Storehouse. The small charcoal shed abuts the house on the east.

Traced on a plan, the pattern is clear: the gatehouse and storehouses on the north front, the private cluster to the south, and the main house between them, reaching both by roofed passages.

Visiting

The Tatsumi Family Residence Main House is the center of a private home and its interior is not shown to the public. As of September 2026, no open days or special viewings have been announced.

Because the house sits inside a 236-meter earthen wall and behind the gatehouse, you cannot see it as a whole from the lanes outside. At most, expect a glimpse of roof above the wall. Keep any photos to the exterior and avoid peering through the gateway. Directions to the estate are on the Tatsumi Family Residence page.