Former Nakayama Family Residence Main House

Former Nakayama Family Residence Main House

The Former Nakayama Family Residence Main House (旧中山家住宅主屋, Kyū Nakayama-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is the principal dwelling of businessman Nakayama Setsutarō's estate in Tsurajima-chō Nishinoura, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture, built around 1914 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on November 2, 2018.

It stands near the middle of the estate terrace and faces south, a timber house with a building area of 358 square meters. A large hip-and-gable roof is ringed by a deep secondary roof, or Geya, and a hip-and-gable porch projects from the front. The roof is laid with pantiles, and the walls are finished in white plaster, with split bamboo fixed vertically in places.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs lists the house as single-storied. The preservation society describes it as two-storied because of the low attic, a Tsushi-nikai used for storage, under the main roof. Both describe the same building: all the living rooms are on the ground floor.

The society gives the ground floor as 10 by 8 ken, measured in the traditional Japanese unit of length. In 1982 a strip on the east side was extended and the kitchen, dining room and bathroom were refitted with aluminum sashes and modern boards; that section alone has mortar-rendered walls, so the extent of the alteration is easy to spot from the east.

Why the Main House Was Registered

Of the five registered buildings on the estate, only the Former Nakayama Family Residence Main House was registered under the criterion of serving as a model of design. The other four were registered for contributing to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles the house out for its carefully chosen timber and fine joinery, describing it as an imposing Japanese-style residence.

A master carpenter brought from Kyoto directed the work, while a team of six local Tsurajima master builders carried it out. The leader of that team was a carpenter named Nakano; his son later worked on repairs to the house, and a third-generation Nakano, also an architect, still lives in Tsurajima.

The preservation society points out that the eaves are carried on hanegi, concealed cantilever beams of the kind used in traditional temple and house building, while the reception rooms show the refined, Sukiya-zukuri-influenced taste of early modern Japanese residential design. In the society's reading, this was a house built to receive guests from well beyond the district, closer in spirit to a guesthouse than to a merchant's or farmer's home.

What to Look For in the Main House

Start at the porch. The underside of the eaves is an exposed ceiling of rafters set in close groups, and inside, the floor is paved with white granite laid on the diagonal, stepping up to a formal Shikidai landing. An entrance this formal echoes the etiquette of samurai residences.

Beyond it is a six-mat anteroom. To the west lie two connected reception rooms of 12 and 15 tatami mats under Saobuchi-tenjō ceilings of thin battens, higher than elsewhere in the house. The 15-mat front room has a generous display alcove, and it is this room the Agency for Cultural Affairs picks out in its description of the Former Nakayama Family Residence Main House.

Tatami-floored verandas wrap the south and west sides of the reception rooms. Behind the anteroom is a 14-mat inner room, from which a tatami corridor runs west through the house with two 8-mat rooms on its north side, each with its own tokonoma and a view of the inner courtyard. Placing rooms in front of and behind a central corridor is the plan the Agency identifies as characteristic of the house.

Look up at the roof as well. The lower eaves project about 1.93 meters on their hidden cantilevers, and the outer strip, about 1.03 meters deep, is sheathed in copper. The eave edge is thick with layered timbers, yet the pantiles keep the whole roof looking light.

Visiting the Main House

The Former Nakayama Family Residence Main House is the centerpiece of any visit on the estate's opening days. Which rooms are open can change with events and repair work, so ask at reception how far into the reception rooms you may go. Shoes come off before stepping onto the tatami.

For the best view of the exterior, stand in the garden and look north. From there the two tiers of roof read as long horizontal lines, and you can see how the hip-and-gable porch sits slightly east of center. Walk round to the east side to find the seam between the original house and the 1982 extension.

Photography rules for the reception rooms are not published, so it is worth asking when you buy your ticket. For getting there, opening days and ticket prices, see the Former Nakayama Family Residence page.