Arai Family Residence Wall

What the Arai Family Residence Wall is

The Arai Family Residence Wall (新井家住宅塀, Arai-ke Jūtaku Hei) is a tiled earthen boundary wall built in 1932 at the Arai Family Residence in Nakasho, Izumisano City, Osaka Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on July 8, 1999. It carries register number 27-0071, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs gives its length as 130 meters.

According to the Agency, the wall marks the western edge of the estate and runs out on both sides of the front gate. The owners call it the white earthen wall and present it, together with the gate, as the outer face of the house.

How the Wall is built and why it was registered

The Agency describes the Arai Family Residence Wall as a thoroughly built structure: it stands on a base of cut stone, is finished in Shikkui lime plaster and is capped with tiles. An earthen wall is made by ramming or layering clay around a core, and clay does not like rain. The usual defenses are to lift it off the ground on stone, seal the surface with plaster and shelter the top under a small tiled roof. This wall has all three.

The Agency also notes that the house was known locally as the "Arai villa," and calls the wall an imposing one worthy of so grand a residence. At 130 meters it presents the largest surface of any of the six entries to the surrounding roads. It shares the registration criterion of all six, contribution to the historic landscape, and it is arguably the entry to which that criterion applies most directly.

The owners describe the wall as about 100 meters long, which does not match the Agency's 130 meters. The gap probably comes from measuring different stretches, such as whether the short wing walls by the gate or the returns at the corners are counted, but the sources do not settle it. This article follows the Agency's database.

What to look for along the Wall

Start at the foot. The cut-stone base, made of squared blocks, keeps the clay wall clear of ground damp. How straight the horizontal joints run is a quick measure of the care taken in building it.

Above it, the white plaster that gives the wall its name grows more striking the further it runs. Walk along the Arai Family Residence Wall away from the gate and the tiled coping and the stone base stay parallel for a long way, which gives a physical sense of how large the estate is.

Visiting the Wall

The Arai Family Residence Wall stands on the outer edge of the estate, so its exterior can be seen from the road. The garden side can be seen only on group tour days arranged with the owners and on the free autumn open day (checked September 27, 2026).

This is the wall of a private house, so do not touch the plaster or tiles or climb on the stone base. Watch for traffic if you stop to take photographs from the road.