Nakamura Family Residence (Kitanakagusuku Village, Nakagami District, Okinawa Prefecture)

What Is the Nakamura Family Residence?

The Nakamura Family Residence (中村家住宅, Nakamura-ke Jūtaku) is the walled homestead of a wealthy farming family in Oshiro, Kitanakagusuku Village, Okinawa Prefecture, with a main house dating from the late Edo period and outbuildings from the Meiji era, and its 5 buildings were designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan on May 15, 1972.

That date is the day Okinawa reverted to Japanese administration, and the house's own website describes the designation as coming at the moment of reversion. The national database writes the building names in hiragana, as asagi and fūru; on site and on the official website you will see them as Ashagi and Furu, while the mae-no-ya appears as Menuya and the momigura as Takakura.

Family tradition, as told on the official website, holds that a Nakamura ancestor came to this district as a teacher to Gosamaru, the lord who moved his castle to Nakagusuku. After Gosamaru's fall the family scattered, but around 1720 its fortunes recovered and a member was appointed to the local post of jitō, roughly a village headman.

Why the Nakamura Family Residence Was Designated

The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out the Nakamura Family Residence as a farmhouse of a wealthy family on Okinawa's main island where the entire compound survives intact: the main house, plus the asagi, mae-no-ya, momigura, and fūru outbuildings. The plot was cut into a gentle south-facing slope, with stone retaining walls on the back and both sides and a stone wall across the front. Besides the 5 buildings, the designation includes, as Tsuketari (attached items), 2 sections of stone wall and 1 hinpun screen wall.

The official website notes how rare it is for a residential compound on the main island to have come through the Battle of Okinawa this complete. It describes the layout as a samurai-class residence joined by farm structures, a raised granary, barn, and animal sheds, so that a single site shows every characteristic of Okinawan domestic architecture.

The main house is two linked blocks. The ufuya, which holds the formal rooms, measures 10.7 by 9.6 meters, with a hipped roof (Yosemune-zukuri) in traditional round-and-flat tiles (Hongawarabuki), and the national database dates it to the late Edo period. The tungwa, the kitchen block, measures 8.5 by 8.7 meters with the same roof form and dates from the Meiji era; it joins the ufuya on its east side. The official website says the surviving buildings are traditionally dated to the mid-18th century, which does not quite match the national database.

The outbuildings are all Meiji-era structures with hipped, tiled roofs: the asagi measures 8.6 by 7.5 meters, the two-story mae-no-ya 10.4 by 5.9 meters, and the raised momigura granary 4.8 by 3.9 meters. The fūru is built of stone, 6.4 meters wide and 4.7 meters deep, and consists of a surrounding stone wall and pigpens.

What to Look For at the Nakamura Family Residence

Step through the gate and a stone screen, the hinpun, blocks the view ahead. The official website explains that it keeps passers-by from looking straight into the house and that it is an Okinawan adaptation of the Chinese screen gate. By tradition, men walked around its right side, while women took the left, which led directly to the kitchen.

The ufuya lines up three rooms from right to left: the first room for guests, the second with the Buddhist altar, and the third for family living, each with a smaller back room behind it. Every tatami room is 6 mats or smaller, because farmers of the period were not allowed anything larger. The pillars are said to have come from a samurai-class house in Shuri and are made of chāgi (Podocarpus) and īku (Mokkoku), woods that commoners were forbidden to use. The red-tile roof is sealed with plaster, and a shisa lion guards the ridge.

In the tungwa, look for the place where Hinukan, the fire deity, is enshrined. The roof over this part of the Nakamura Family Residence sits very low because the attic was used to store firewood and food.

Each outbuilding has its own logic. The momigura stands on square posts like the house rather than the round posts usual for Okinawan granaries, has board walls and floor, and uses a sloped underside as a rat guard. The mae-no-ya has a mezzanine: livestock below, behind low stone walls, and firewood for making brown sugar above. The posts where cattle and goats were tethered lock into their base stones with notched joints so they cannot be pulled free. The fūru is a row of 3 linked stone enclosures with arched openings, the best place in the compound to see stonework up close.

Visiting the Nakamura Family Residence

The Nakamura Family Residence is open to the public for a fee. According to the official website it opens on Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and is closed on Wednesday and Thursday. Hours are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with last entry at 4:40 p.m. Admission is 500 yen for adults, 300 yen for junior high and high school students, and 200 yen for elementary school children, with 10 percent off for groups of 20 or more.

The Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau notes that you can go inside the buildings and see the Buddhist altar and the kitchen shrine to the fire deity. Parking is free. The official website says nothing about photography, so ask at the ticket desk if it matters to you.

A car is the easiest way to arrive. The official website gives about 35 minutes (about 17 km) from central Naha via Route 58, or about 15 minutes (about 15 km) from the Naha interchange of the Okinawa Expressway. The house is close to the World Heritage site of Nakagusuku Castle, and the website suggests seeing both. Given the family's story of arriving with Gosamaru, walking from the castle to the Nakamura Family Residence makes a fitting route.