Ebara Family Residence (Suita)

About the Ebara Family Residence (Suita)

The Ebara Family Residence (Suita) (榎原家住宅, Ebara-ke Jūtaku) is a late Edo to Meiji-period homestead in Toyotsu-cho, Suita City, Osaka Prefecture, whose main house, Nagayamon gate, east storehouse, former rice storehouse, west storehouse and kakebei wall were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 9 June 2004. The main house dates from the last decades of the Edo period (1830–1867).

The family name is read Ebara. Osaka Bunkazai Navi, a guide to cultural properties across the prefecture, gives the reading as "Ebara-ke jūtaku". It is sometimes misread as Enohara.

All six were registered on the same day under consecutive numbers, 27-0292 to 27-0297. Suita City lists them together as a large farmhouse compound of the late Edo period, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the main house as carrying on the traditions of the homes of Osaka's village headmen. Another Ebara Family Residence, in Osone, Toyonaka City, is a separate registration on a different site; this page covers the Suita house only.

How the Ebara Estate Is Laid Out

The Ebara Family Residence stands on a roughly square plot. The main house occupies the northern half and faces south. The front of the estate is on the east, where a street runs past and where the Nagayamon gate, a gatehouse with living rooms built into it, forms the entrance.

The gate does not stand alone. The single-storey former rice storehouse joins its southern end at the south-east corner, and the two-storey east storehouse abuts its northern end at the north-east corner. From the street, then, you see one continuous front: rice store, gate, storehouse.

At the north-west corner, right beside the main house, is the west storehouse, linked directly to the formal rooms at the back of the house. Behind the house, a 21-metre kakebei wall closes off the northern edge of the plot.

The dates in the national database tell a story of their own. The main house and gate are late Edo, and the gate was altered in the early Meiji years. The east storehouse followed in 1874, the west storehouse in 1890, and the rice storehouse and wall around 1890. First the house and its entrance, then, over the following decades, storehouses at the corners and a wall along the back.

The main house was registered as a model of form and design. The other five were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape, a recognition of how gate, storehouses and wall shape the estate as a whole.

Visiting the Ebara Family Residence

The Ebara Family Residence is a private home and is not open to the public. Visitors cannot enter the grounds or see the interiors, and Osaka Bunkazai Navi marks it as closed to visits. We found no notice of special openings from Suita City or Osaka Bunkazai Navi.

What can be seen is the east front along the street: the Nagayamon gate with the rice storehouse and east storehouse on either side. Please take photographs only from the public road, and avoid peering through the gate or standing where you would block the residents' way in and out.

The nearest station is Esaka, served by the Osaka Metro Midosuji Line and the Kita-Osaka Kyuko Railway. The house lies about 400 metres west of the station as the crow flies, a walk of under 10 minutes. There is no visitor parking, so come by train.