Araki Family Residence (Kusu)

About the Araki Family Residence (Kusu)

The Araki Family Residence (荒木家住宅, Araki-ke Jūtaku) is a townhouse compound in the former castle town of Mori, Kusu Town, Oita Prefecture, whose three buildings, a kitchen storehouse of 1904, a sake storehouse of 1914 and a main house of 1922, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on March 26, 2015. The street-facing main house, a Machiya with a shop room at the front, has two plastered storehouses standing behind it.

Two other registered properties share the name Araki Family Residence, one in Kita Ward, Kyoto, and one in Hiwa, Shobara City, Hiroshima Prefecture. They belong to different families and have no connection with the buildings in Kusu. This page covers the three buildings at 938 Mori.

A House in the Castle Town of the Mori Domain

Mori was the seat of the Mori Domain, ruled by the Kurushima family through the Edo period (1603 to 1868). Kusu Town's description of the area explains that samurai residences surrounded the lord's Jinya, or administrative compound, while the townspeople's quarter stretched away in a long strip to the south. The lord's gardens west of the compound site are now a national Place of Scenic Beauty, the Former Kurushima Family Garden.

The main house of the Araki Family Residence faces east onto one of the streets of this old town. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a modern building that adds color to the former castle town. Since fiscal 2003, Kusu Town has carried out a streetscape improvement program in the Mori district, and the Araki Family Residence was registered as part of the historic townscape that program aims to keep.

The Three Buildings and Their Registration

From the street to the back of the lot, the three buildings of the Araki Family Residence are laid out as follows. Dates, construction and floor areas follow the Agency for Cultural Affairs database.

• The main house faces the street to the east. It is a two-story timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 235 square meters, built in 1922 and renovated around 1975 and again in 2007.
• The sake storehouse stands northwest of the main house, its ridge running north to south. It is a two-story Dozo-zukuri storehouse about 18 meters long, with a building area of 121 square meters, built in 1914.
• The kitchen storehouse sits behind the inner reception room of the main house, its ridge running east to west. It is also a two-story dozo-zukuri storehouse, 6.9 meters by 4.9 meters, with a building area of 34 square meters. Built in 1904, it is the oldest of the three.

Put in date order, the storehouses at the back came first and the house on the street came last. The dates recorded by the Agency suggest that the family built up its storage before raising the present main house in the early 1920s.

All three buildings were added to the national register on March 26, 2015, under registration numbers 44-0206 to 44-0208, each for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency's database classes all three under secondary industry, treating the compound as a place of work as well as a home.

Visiting the Araki Family Residence

The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives no owner for the Araki Family Residence. Kusu Town advises visitors that some cultural properties in the town are privately owned or not normally open. No public or special openings of the Araki Family Residence could be found, so plan on staying outside the lot and the buildings.

What can be seen is the street front of the main house. The sake storehouse and kitchen storehouse lie behind it, and how much of them is visible from the street has not been confirmed. Take photographs only from the public road, and keep clear of residents and traffic.

The nearest station is Bungo-Mori on the JR Kyūdai Line. The Araki Family Residence is about 2.3 kilometers away by road, roughly 30 minutes on foot, heading south from the station into the old castle town of Mori.