Former Nashiro Family Residence

About the Former Nashiro Family Residence

The Former Nashiro Family Residence (旧名城家住宅, Kyū Nashiro-ke Jūtaku) is a Ryukyuan farmhouse compound built in 1905 in Serikyaku, Izena Village, Okinawa Prefecture, and its main house and stone wall were registered as two Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan on November 29, 2016.

The family name 名城 is read Nashiro in Okinawa, not Meijo. Izena Village owns and manages both structures, and its own list of cultural properties records them together as the main house and stone wall of the former Nashiro family.

Izena Island is known as the home of King Shō En, who founded the Second Shō dynasty of the Ryukyu Kingdom in the fifteenth century. Serikyaku is a settlement on the island's western side, pronounced Jitchaku in the local dialect. The Nashiro compound fills one plot of the settlement inside a wall of coral stone.

Restoration and present use

The Former Nashiro Family Residence was repaired under a village program that rescues empty old houses and rents them to families moving to the island. According to the village's tenant guidelines, work on the house was completed in March 2015, and the property is let as a settlement-promotion home. Registration as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property followed in 2016.

The same guidelines give the plot as 784 square meters and set an unusual condition for tenants: the grounds are to be kept open as part of the local landscape so that visitors can look around at any time. When the village advertised the house in October 2018, the standard lease ran for 5 years.

The two registered structures

• Main house (registration no. 47-0086): built in 1905; single-story timber, tiled roof, building area 119 square meters; registered as a model of architectural form
• Stone wall (registration no. 47-0087): built around 1905; coral stone, 116 meters long; registered as a structure difficult to reproduce

Both were registered on the same day with consecutive numbers. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database lists the same address, 1547 Serikyaku, and the same owner, Izena Village, for each.

Layout of the Nashiro compound

The wall runs around all four sides of the plot and opens on the south. The main house stands inside under a roof of red Ryukyu tiles. Photographs released by the village after the restoration show a free-standing screen wall, a hinpun, just inside the gate, with the front of the house visible behind it.

The Agency describes the wall as a surviving example of a traditional Izena house plot, a type that has become scarce. Seen together, the wall and the house explain how an Izena household arranged its home a century ago, and that pairing is the reason the Former Nashiro Family Residence is best understood as a single compound.

Getting to the Former Nashiro Family Residence

Izena Island is reached by the village ferry Izena Shōen, which sails between Unten Port in Nakijin Village on the main island of Okinawa and Nakata Port on Izena. The crossing takes about 55 minutes, with 2 round trips a day according to the village. An adult one-way ticket costs 1,840 yen plus an environmental levy of 100 yen. Sailings are cancelled or retimed in bad weather, so check the village website before setting out. From Nakata Port, head for the Serikyaku settlement on the west side of the island.

The Former Nashiro Family Residence is a lived-in home rented out by the village, and the interior of the main house is not open. Although the village asks tenants to let visitors onto the grounds, it publishes no current information on occupancy or viewing, so please treat the property as a private residence and confirm access with the Izena Village Office (tel. 0980-45-2001) before you go. There is no official guidance on photography.