Hojo Family Residence

About the Hojo Family Residence

The Hojo Family Residence (北條家住宅, Hōjō-ke Jūtaku) is the homestead of a family of physicians in Izumi, Sado City, Niigata Prefecture; its main house, built in the second half of the 18th century, was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1977, and four outbuildings became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2006.

For generations the head of the Hojo family practised medicine under the inherited name Dōeki. Sado City traces the line to the first Dōeki, the former chief priest of a Shingon temple in Hikami District of Tanba Province, in what is now Hyogo Prefecture. In 1663 he was exiled to Sado for lodging a direct appeal with the authorities. In Aikawa, the island's mining town, he made a living as a doctor and diviner, and built a reputation partly by treating Ogura Saneoki, a court noble who had also been banished to the island. He later moved inland, and from 1695 the family held land in Izumi.

The estate lies on the gentle slopes below Mount Kinpoku, Sado's highest peak, where the ground falls away toward the Kuninaka Plain. The official name of the main house, 北條家住宅(新潟県佐渡郡金井町), still carries the name of Kanai Town, which was merged into Sado City in 2004.

One Designated House and Four Registered Buildings

Two national systems meet on this one property. The main house was designated an Important Cultural Property on 28 January 1977. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a doctor's house with an offset four-room plan and counts it among the most representative farmhouses on Sado.

The other four buildings were registered together on 18 October 2006 as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties, under consecutive numbers 15-0223 to 15-0226. All four were chosen for their contribution to the historic landscape. The national database lists the five buildings of the Hojo Family Residence as follows.

• Main house: late Edo period (second half of the 18th century), single-storey timber, hipped thatched roof, 18.8 meters by 10.1 meters
• Nagayamon gate: end of the Edo period, single-storey timber, thatched, building area 60 square meters
• Rice storehouse: early Meiji period, 2-storey earthen-walled and timber structure, tiled roof, 106 square meters
• Household goods storehouse: late Meiji period, 2-storey earthen-walled storehouse, tiled roof, 35 square meters
• Miso storehouse: early Meiji period, 2-storey timber building, tiled roof, 34 square meters

The roofs give away the ages. The two thatched buildings belong to the Edo period, and the three tile-roofed storehouses were added in the Meiji era, so the estate took its present shape over roughly a century and a half.

How the Estate Is Laid Out

The Hojo Family Residence turns its thatched Nagayamon gate toward the street, near the eastern edge of the plot. Through the gate, the main house stands in the middle of the north side, facing south.

West of the main house come the miso storehouse and then the household goods storehouse, both facing south. The rice storehouse stands on the west side of the plot, south of the household goods storehouse, and faces east. Covered front bays called Kuramae tie the buildings together: the miso storehouse joins the main house through its bay, and the bay of the household goods storehouse links the rice and miso storehouses. Four buildings thus run in an unbroken L from the main house to the rice storehouse, which is the defining feature of the Hojo Family Residence plan.

Only the gate stands on its own. The Agency for Cultural Affairs reads the gate as the front of a farming household and the rice storehouse as the mark of a major landowner, and together they show a family that was the local doctor and a landlord at the same time.

Visiting the Hojo Family Residence

The Hojo Family Residence is a privately owned home. As of 28 September 2026, neither Sado City nor the tourism sites list opening days or an admission fee.

From mid-September 2026, Sado City has also asked visitors not to enter the grounds while work is carried out on the main house, and it has not said when the work will finish. Check the current situation with the city's cultural properties office in the World Heritage Division (tel. 0259-63-5136) before setting out.

The Nagayamon gate faces the street, so its thatched front can be seen from the road. The main house and the three storehouses stand inside the gate and cannot be approached while the request to stay out is in place.

By car, the Hojo Family Residence is about 35 minutes from Ryotsu Port, where ferries from Niigata arrive. The nearest bus stop is Izumi on the main-line (Hon-sen) route, but it is about a 30-minute walk from there. There is no parking at the house.