Hosaka Family Residence (Joetsu)

The Hosaka Family Residence: a great landowner's estate in Tonome, Joetsu

The Hosaka Family Residence (保阪家住宅, Hosaka-ke Jūtaku) is the estate of the Hosaka, a great landowning family, in Tonome, Joetsu City, Niigata Prefecture, where buildings ranging from an 1826 storehouse to a mid-20th-century greenhouse survive; its main house, annex, tool storehouse and greenhouse, together with the Igantei guest hall that once belonged to the estate, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on March 6, 2024. Locally the property is known as Hosaka-tei (保阪邸).

The Agency for Cultural Affairs places the estate on the gangi street of Tonome, the covered snow-arcade lane typical of towns in this part of Niigata. It sits in a farming settlement about half an hour's walk from Takada Station, and the buildings that remain belonged to a family that grew rich on land from the Edo period onward.

The family behind the Hosaka Family Residence

Joetsu City describes the Hosaka as one of the largest landowners in the prefecture, with roots in Daito, in what is now the Sanwa district of the city. The family name appears in the land survey registers of the Keicho era, and after the first head, Tokuemon, moved to Tonome, its holdings reached 644 chobu. By the end of the Tenpo era the rice paid to the family each year, after tenant shares, came to 12,000 koku.

The Joetsu Meika Network, which manages public openings of the house, gives a fuller account. The Hosaka had settled here from the Sanwa area by the Kyoho era (1716 to 1736) at the latest and ran a rice wholesale business at Inada. When the castle town of Takada shrank after a succession dispute in the ruling house, the family turned back to farming, moved its base to neighboring Tonome and began reclaiming new rice fields.

The city's published introduction to the Hosaka family papers calls the family a major landowner from the mid-Edo period on. A prefectural survey of 1944 recorded 627.5 chobu of farmland in its hands, far more than anyone else in the Kubiki district. Records survive of about 30 occasions, from the 1820s to the early Meiji years, when the family handed out rice and money after fires, earthquakes and bad harvests. The city also notes that when the Takada domain ran short of funds after the great earthquake of 1847, the head of the family, serving as a senior village official, paid large contributions to the domain.

The eighth head, Hosaka Sadakichi, planted lotus in the outer moat of Takada Castle. According to the family's own guide, he grew and sold the plants to support former domain retainers after the Meiji Restoration, and this was the start of the lotus beds in Takada Park, where a monument to him still stands. Postwar land reform took most of the family's farmland and wealth, and the Hosaka Family Residence is now the home of the twelfth-generation head.

Five registrations at the Hosaka Family Residence and their dates

The five buildings connected with the Hosaka Family Residence were registered on the same day under consecutive numbers: 15-0588 for the main house, 15-0589 for the annex, 15-0590 for the tool storehouse, 15-0591 for the greenhouse and 15-0592 for the Igantei. The first four were registered as buildings that contribute to the historic landscape of the country, and the Igantei as a building that has become a model of design.

In order of age, the tool storehouse comes first: it was built in 1826 and moved to its present site in 1909. The annex dates from 1909 as well, and the Igantei from 1912. The main house went up in 1949, the same year the annex was extended. The greenhouse is dated to the middle of the Showa period, 1946 to 1965.

The cluster of construction between 1909 and 1912 appears to follow a fire. The family's guide says the main house burned in 1908, that rebuilding took 3 years and that the garden was finished 7 years after that. The city's introduction to the family papers mentions documents on a house fire and rebuilding in 1907, so the sources differ by a year on the date of the fire.

How the Hosaka Family Residence is laid out

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the main house of the Hosaka Family Residence stands in the middle of a large plot, facing south. The annex lies to its west and is joined to it by a covered corridor. The tool storehouse is north of the main house and the greenhouse to its southeast.

The Igantei is registered at a different lot number (482 Terabata and other lots) from the other four. The family's guide describes it as the former front entrance of the Hosaka house, serving as the estate's hall for receiving guests. Around 1948, after land reform, the tenth head, Rinzaburo, passed it to the office of the Nakae irrigation canal, and around 1982 a company bought and restored it. Its owner today is Furuyashiki Sonzoku Co., Ltd., which makes it the only one of the five buildings not in private family hands.

Set the Igantei, with its grand entrance under a cusped karahafu gable, beside the main house, whose reception room is finished plainly without nageshi tie beams, and the difference in rank between the two buildings is plain. Each building's structure and details are covered on its own page.

Visiting the Hosaka Family Residence

The Hosaka Family Residence is a private home and is normally closed. It can be visited only during the Joetsu Meika joint openings, held each spring and autumn by the nonprofit Joetsu Meika Network, a group of four historic family houses in the city, or by booked group visits. Niigata Tourism Navi gives May and November as the usual months for public openings.

The autumn 2026 opening runs on November 7 and 8 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., with a maintenance contribution of 800 yen at the Hosaka house and free entry for high school students and younger. The spring 2026 opening, on May 9 and 10, ran from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with a contribution of 500 yen per house. Times and charges change from one opening to the next, so check the latest notice before you go.

Visitors are told that some areas are closed because of earthquake damage, that socks should be worn to protect the floors, and that restricted areas, fittings and displayed objects are off limits. In July 2023 the garden, greenhouse and tool storehouse were shown in a special 3-day opening.

The Hosaka Family Residence is at 488 Tonome, Joetsu City, about 30 minutes on foot or 13 minutes by car from Takada Station on the Echigo Tokimeki Railway. By car it is about 5 minutes from the Joetsu interchange on the Hokuriku Expressway and about 15 minutes from the Joetsu-Takada interchange on the Joshin-etsu Expressway. There is parking for only a few cars, and on opening days attendants direct drivers to designated spaces.

Names and spellings of the Hosaka Family Residence

The registered names are 保阪家住宅主屋 (Main House, omoya), 保阪家住宅離れ (Annex, hanare), 保阪家住宅道具蔵 (Tool Storehouse, dogugura), 保阪家住宅温室 (Greenhouse, onshitsu) and 怡顔亭 (Igantei). Locally the whole estate is called Hosaka-tei, and the Igantei is sometimes written 怡顔邸.

Some tourism guides call the Igantei the hanare, or detached wing, of Hosaka-tei. In the national register, however, the Hosaka Family Residence Annex, built in 1909 with a hipped roof, and the Igantei, built in 1912 with a hip-and-gable roof, are separate buildings.

The Hosaka Family Residence should not be confused with the 保坂家住宅 in Yuki, Ibaraki Prefecture, which is spelled the same way in English but belongs to an unrelated family.