Irifukuhama Family Residence Main House

What Is the Irifukuhama Family Residence Main House?

The Irifukuhama Family Residence Main House (入福浜家住宅主屋, Irifukuhama-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a single-storey timber house built in the early Taishō period (1912-1925) at 160 Yonaguni in Yonaguni Town, Okinawa Prefecture, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on November 29, 2006.

Yonaguni is the westernmost of Japan's inhabited islands, closer to Taiwan than to the Okinawan main island. The house stands in Sonai, the island's main settlement, which spreads along the north coast around the town office. Going by the coordinates in the national heritage database, the Irifukuhama house sits about 250 meters northwest of the Yonaguni Town Office, inside an ordinary residential block.

Only the main house of the Irifukuhama property is listed, under registration number 47-0024. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates its construction to the early Taishō years and records an alteration (kaichiku) carried out in 2002. Okinawa Prefecture's own list reads the final word of the name as "omoya" rather than the agency's "shuoku"; both mean main house.

Why the Irifukuhama House Was Registered

The agency registered the Irifukuhama Family Residence Main House under the criterion of buildings that "would not be easy to reproduce," and its short commentary closes by calling it a valuable wooden building that keeps the character of its region well. That regional character is easy to name once you know what to look for in an Okinawan house: a row of formal rooms across the front, the alcove and household altar set behind them, sleeping rooms at the back, red clay roof tiles, and a deep, post-supported eave called Amahaji.

The house also holds a small place in Yonaguni's record. According to Okinawa Prefecture's 2014 list of cultural properties, the town has eight registered buildings, all of them houses in the Yonaguni district: this main house, two structures at the Kubura family residence and five at the Tōgei family residence. The Irifukuhama listing has the earliest notification date of the eight, so the town's registered buildings begin with this one house.

Inside the Plan of the Irifukuhama Family Residence Main House

The Irifukuhama Family Residence Main House stands near the middle of its plot with its front to the south. It measures 6.5 ken by 5 ken (a ken is a traditional unit of roughly 1.8 meters), and the agency gives the building area as 172 square meters.

The plan reads best in two bands. Along the sunny south side run three rooms in a line, called the first, second and third za (ichibanza, nibanza, sanbanza). Behind the second room, on its north side, sit the Tokonoma alcove and the butsudan, the family altar for the ancestors. The back of the house holds three ura-za, rear rooms used for sleeping and storage. Because the alcove and altar are grouped behind the central room, the plan makes plain where the ceremonial heart of the household lay.

Look next at the amahaji posts on the south and east faces. In Okinawa the eave is pushed far out and carried on a line of posts, leaving a shaded strip under the roof that shelters the walls from rain and sun. At the Irifukuhama house those posts wrap around two sides, so the sheltered space turns the southeast corner instead of stopping at the front.

The published records say nothing about what the 2002 work changed. The registered building is the Taishō house as it stands after that alteration, which is worth keeping in mind when reading its age from the outside.

Visiting the Irifukuhama House

The Irifukuhama Family Residence Main House is privately owned and is not open to the public. The national database leaves the owner field blank, while Okinawa Prefecture lists an individual. You cannot enter the house or the grounds, so a visit means looking at the exterior from the street. There is no official guidance on photography; since the house may still be lived in, avoid pointing a camera through the gateway into the yard.

Yonaguni is reached by air or sea. The Yonaguni Town Tourism Association reported, as of March 2026, two Ryukyu Air Commuter flights a day from Naha and three a day from Ishigaki. The Fukuyama Kaiun ferry Yonakuni sails from Ishigaki Port twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays.

Yonaguni Airport lies about 2.6 kilometers west of the Irifukuhama house in a straight line. A free community bus run by the town links the three settlements of Sonai, Kubura and Higawa, but it makes only nine runs a day, and the tourism association recommends a rental car for getting around.