Former Nagase Family Residence

What Is the Former Nagase Family Residence?

The Former Nagase Family Residence (旧永瀬家住宅, Kyū Nagase-ke Jūtaku) is an early Meiji-period (1868–1882) townhouse in Matsuki, Akaiwa City, Okayama Prefecture, the birthplace of the poet Nagase Kiyoko, and its main house and well were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan on October 27, 2017.

The property belongs to the Nagase Kiyoko Birthplace Preservation Society, a nonprofit organization. Locals long called it simply "Nagase Kiyoko's birthplace"; since it reopened after restoration in 2021, it has gone by the name Kiyoko no Ie (清子の家), "Kiyoko's House." The two registered structures carry different lot numbers (691 for the main house, 689-2 for the well), but they stand in the same compound, with the well just southeast of the house.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates both to the early Meiji period, and Akaiwa City describes the Former Nagase Family Residence as a townhouse said to have been built in those years. No exact construction date is known.

Nagase Kiyoko and Her Birthplace in Matsuki

Nagase Kiyoko (永瀬清子) was born on February 17, 1906, in Matsuki, then a village community in Akaiwa District, the eldest daughter of the Nagase family. Her registered given name was Kiyo. According to Akaiwa City, the Nagase household was a well-to-do local family, and her maternal grandfather sat in the Okayama prefectural assembly in the early Meiji years.

Her father was an electrical engineer, and his postings took the family to Kanazawa, where Kiyoko lived from the age of 2 to 16, and later to Nagoya. Marriage brought her to Osaka and then Tokyo. Her 1940 collection Shokoku no Tennyo (Celestial Maidens of Many Lands), with a preface by the sculptor and poet Takamura Kōtarō, made her name in Japanese poetry circles.

Around the end of the Second World War, at 39, she came back to the Former Nagase Family Residence with her four children, partly because of her husband's job transfer. For the first time in her life she farmed, and she kept writing. In 1952, while still living in Matsuki, she founded the poetry magazine 黄薔薇 (Yellow Rose). She stayed until she was 59, when she moved to Okayama City, so for some 20 years this house was where her poems were made.

Nagase Kiyoko died on February 17, 1995, her 89th birthday. The anniversary is kept as Kōbai-ki, the "Red Plum Memorial," and is still marked at the house. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes her as a poet said to be a pioneer among Japanese women poets.

How the Preservation Society Saved the Former Nagase Family Residence

By 2005 the Former Nagase Family Residence was decaying, and a group of volunteers, many of them poets, came together so that it would not be lost. In 2013 they were certified as a nonprofit organization and took ownership of the land and buildings.

A structural engineer and a master carpenter joined the effort. The society repaired the main house, including seismic strengthening, and restored the shelter over the well. It says the work cost about 10 million yen, was paid for entirely by private donations, and took 12 years. Not everything survived: the family storehouse could not be funded and was demolished in 2017.

The main house and the well were registered that same year. Crowdfunding then paid for the restoration of the detached annex and the kamaya, the separate kitchen building, which was completed on February 17, 2021, the anniversary of Kiyoko's death. The house opened as Kiyoko no Ie that May, and in February 2024 electric lighting was installed in the main house and opening days rose to five a week.

The Two Registered Structures of the Former Nagase Family Residence

Both structures were registered on October 27, 2017, under the criterion "contributing to the historic landscape of the country."

• Main House (registration no. 33-0280): a 2-story wooden building with an irimoya (hip-and-gable) roof and a building area of 87 square meters. The entrance opens at the left of the front, and the rear earthen floor is paved with bricks laid on the diagonal in the Shihanjiki pattern.
• Well (registration no. 33-0281): a stone well southeast of the main house, covering 1.4 square meters, under a wooden shelter roofed with pantiles.

The restored annex, the kamaya and the goemon-buro bathtub in the inner garden are not part of the registration.

Walking Around the Former Nagase Family Residence

A visit starts in the main house by the road. Both floors serve as galleries, with a timeline of Kiyoko's life, photographs and notes on the building. From the upstairs windows you look out over the rice fields to the hills beyond, the same view Kiyoko had.

Stone steps lead down from the main house to the kamaya, which still has its cooking range and now runs as Café Grendel no Kamaya. The name borrows a word from Kiyoko's 1930 collection Grendel no Hahaoya (Grendel's Mother). Beyond it, across an inner garden with a red plum tree, is the annex with its tatami room.

The well sits southeast of the main house, on the side of the outer garden, where tall fir and Japanese nutmeg-yew trees can be seen from a distance, along with an old white plum. In September 2026 the World Federation Peace Memorial, a stone monument that had stood in Ishiyama Park in Okayama City, was moved into this garden.

Getting to the Former Nagase Family Residence (Kiyoko no Ie) and Opening Days

The nearest station is Kumayama on the JR San'yō Line, about 27 minutes by eastbound train from Okayama. The house is about 2 kilometers from Kumayama Station, across the Kumayama Bridge over the Yoshii River. Akaiwa City community buses leave from the station (no service on Sundays and public holidays); the society says the nearest stop is a 5-minute walk from the house, and the Kumayama Shinryōjo (clinic) stop a 7- to 8-minute walk. The city's on-demand bus, Noruto Akaiwa, has a pickup point at the house, but riders must register and book in advance. Taxis wait at the station.

By car, leave the San'yō Expressway at San'yō Interchange and head toward Seto Station. There is a parking lot for about 10 cars near the Former Nagase Family Residence; when it is full, the society asks visitors to use the lot at the Akaiwa City Kumayama Fureai Center. Some of the lanes nearby are narrow.

Kiyoko no Ie is open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (last entry 3:30 p.m.). Admission is 1,000 yen and free for visitors under 17; using only the bookshop inside is free. It is closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays, throughout August and over the New Year holidays. The café opens on the same days, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (last order 3:00 p.m.).

The society has announced that from January 2027 the house will open on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, with other days by reservation, so check its website for current days before you go. On the 17th of each month, the day of Kiyoko's death, the society has long held a cleaning day and poetry readings at the house.