Ebara Family Residence

A Headman's Compound in Ozone Village

The Ebara Family Residence (榎原家住宅, Ebara-ke Jūtaku) in Ozone, Toyonaka City, Osaka Prefecture, is the compound of a village headman's family built up between 1830 and 1868, and eight of its buildings, gates and walls were registered together as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 7, 2014. The name is read Ebara, not Enohara.

For generations the Ebara were the Shōya, the headman family, of Ozone village, a farming community that grew rice and dry-field crops on the plain north of Osaka. The house sits close to the point where the Nose Kaidō road, heading north into the hills, parted from the road east toward Suita. The family that collected the village's taxes and settled its disputes lived where travellers and cargo had to pass.

The main house is said to have been rebuilt in the Tenpō era (1830 to 1844). The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the main house, the annex and all three storehouses to the late Edo period, and the three gate-and-wall structures to the Taishō period (1912 to 1926). The compound took shape in two stages: a set of buildings before the fall of the shogunate, then, in the Taishō years, a set of gates and walls that divided up the gardens.

The gatehouse that once fronted the property, a Nagayamon, was lost in the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995. The main house was renovated in 2000. Without its gate the street face of the Ebara Family Residence has changed, but the plan of a headman's house ringed by storehouses is intact.

Why Eight Structures Were Registered at Once

The Council for Cultural Affairs recommended all eight structures of the Ebara Family Residence in a single report in March 2014, and the registration took effect that October. Their registration numbers run consecutively from 27-0599 to 27-0606, and every one was listed under the same criterion: a structure that contributes to the historic landscape of the country.

The council's summary moves through the compound piece by piece: a large farmhouse that carries the formality of a headman's household, an annex with a veranda in the relaxed sukiya taste, three storehouses in a row along the north side, a garden gate that splits the front garden, another that closes off the rear garden, and an outer wall built to protect the property from floods. What earned the listing was less any single building than the way they combine into one complete household.

Five of the eight are buildings (the main house, the annex and Storehouses No. 1, 2 and 3) and three are gates and walls. Each has its own page covering construction and details.

How the Compound Is Laid Out

The main house stands near the middle of the lot and faces south. Behind it, on the north edge of the property, is the annex, and to the west of the annex the three storehouses run in sequence toward the northwest corner. An outer wall links these north-side buildings, so that the back of the Ebara Family Residence reads as one continuous barrier.

On the south side, a wall runs from the western end of the main house's formal entrance, the Shikidai, and a small roji gate set into it divides the front garden into east and west halves. Between the rear of the main house and the annex, a second gate and wall close off the eastern side of the inner garden. The Taishō-period gates made the old distinction between front and back, public and private, visible on the ground.

The outer wall rises from a base of cut stone, and the agency's description credits it with guarding the house against water. In a low-lying farming village, the north side of the compound was deliberately hardened against floods.

Visiting and Getting There

The Ebara Family Residence is still a private home, and neither the grounds nor the buildings are open to the public; the Osaka Cultural Heritage Navi listing marks it as closed to visitors. Anyone passing by should keep to the public road, look only at what can be seen from there, and be considerate of the family and neighbours. The ordinary courtesy that applies to photographing any private house applies here too.

The address is 1-214-1 Ozone, Toyonaka City. As a rough guide, it is a walk of 15 to 20 minutes east from Hattori-Tenjin Station on the Hankyu Takarazuka Line, or west from Esaka Station on the Osaka Metro Midosuji Line. There is no visitor parking.

No special openings or guided tours could be confirmed while researching this page. The cultural properties office of the Toyonaka City Board of Education is the most reliable place to ask about any future opportunity.