Morohashi Family Residence (Niigata City)

About the Morohashi Family Residence (Niigata City)

The Morohashi Family Residence (諸橋家住宅, Morohashi-ke Jūtaku) is a farmhouse compound in Myogadani, Konan Ward, Niigata City, whose 1905 storehouse and main house of around 1921 were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on November 20, 2001. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the main house as the home of one of the leading large farming families of the district, and the Morohashi family still farms from the property today.

Niigata City lists the two buildings together as the Morohashi Family Residence main house and storehouse, owned by a private individual, and links from that list to Morohashi Yajiro Farm, the business the family runs from the house.

A second, unrelated Morohashi Family Residence Main House stands in Raiden, Nagaoka City. It dates from 1878 and was registered in 2007. This page covers only the two buildings in Myogadani.

A Farmstead on the Dunes of Kamedagō

Myogadani lies within Kamedagō (亀田郷), the low basin hemmed in by the Shinano, Agano and Koagano rivers. Konan Ward's own history notes that two thirds of this land sits below sea level, and that until the drainage and land improvement works of the Showa era, farmers planted rice standing waist-deep in water. Villages clung to the slightly higher ground of old sand-dune ridges.

The ward singles out the dune line that runs from Matsuyama and Naoriyama through Myogadani to Maruyama, where Nara- and Heian-period sites are common, and calls the area the oldest settled part of Kamedagō. Myogadani became part of Oeyama Village in 1901 and was absorbed into Niigata City in 1957, so both buildings of the Morohashi Family Residence went up during the Oeyama Village years.

The storehouse came first, in 1905, and the main house followed around 1921. The main house's framing reuses old beams, though the Agency's description does not say which building they came from.

How the Two Buildings Sit Together

Read together, the Agency for Cultural Affairs entries place the two buildings of the Morohashi Family Residence like this:

• The main house is a single-story timber building of 277 square meters. Its earth-floored work area, the niwa, is pushed forward from the front in the chumon-zukuri plan typical of snowy Niigata.
• The storehouse stands south of the main house and faces north. It is a one-story Dozo-zukuri building of 25 square meters, divided inside into a rice store and a general storeroom.

Because the storehouse faces north, its door looks back toward the main house. Both buildings were registered on November 20, 2001, and gazetted on December 4. They carry the consecutive registration numbers 15-0114 and 15-0115, but under different criteria: the main house as a model of design, the storehouse for its contribution to the historic landscape.

The main house is plain outside and lavish with fine timber in the front reception rooms. The storehouse varies its walls with exposed posts and a white plaster Nokijabara cornice. Side by side, they show how a large Kamedagō farming household was laid out in the Taisho era.

Visiting the Morohashi Family Residence

The Morohashi Family Residence is privately owned and remains a working family home and farm. It is not a public facility, and the interiors are not open to visitors. Niigata City asks anyone viewing its listed properties to be considerate and notes that owners may not always be able to accommodate visits. When checked on October 4, 2026, the farm's website said it had stopped taking inquiries.

If you go, stay off the property and look from the public road. The nearest station is Kameda on the JR Shinetsu Line, about 2.5 kilometers to the west in a straight line. The farm's own directions give a drive of 15 to 20 minutes from Kameda Station and about 15 minutes from either Niigata Airport Interchange on the Nihonkai-Tohoku Expressway or Takeo Interchange on the National Route 7 Niigata Bypass.