Former Inoue Family Residence

What Is the Former Inoue Family Residence?

The Former Inoue Family Residence (旧井上家住宅, Kyū-Inoue-ke Jūtaku) is the estate of a former village headman's family in Kusaka, Higashiosaka City, Osaka Prefecture, where a main house built in 1784 and eleven other structures were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 15 August 2024. It sits on sloping ground at the western foot of Mount Ikoma, in the northeast of the city.

Kusaka was once a cove on the ancient Kawachi lagoon, and its name appears, written as 日下 or 草香, in the Kojiki and the Man'yōshū. According to Osaka Bunkazai Navi, the Inoue family is said to go back to the Muromachi period, and in the later Edo period it held the post of shōya, or village headman, of Kusaka for generations.

The sloping lane that runs east to west past the front gate is an old road known as the Daidō. Downhill to the west it meets National Route 170; uphill to the east it leads to the temple of Dairyūji. The Former Inoue Family Residence now belongs to a religious corporation, Butsudō Myōken Kaiun Kyōkai.

Twelve Registered Buildings

All twelve structures of the Former Inoue Family Residence were entered on the national register together on 15 August 2024, the 107th round of registrations, as numbers 27-0917 to 27-0928. Each was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The dates and sizes given by the Agency for Cultural Affairs database are these:

• Main House: 1784, altered in the mid-Meiji period and in 1978; single-storey timber, thatch (temporarily sheathed in copper) with some tile; building area 273 m²
• Inner Storehouse: late Edo; two-storey earthen storehouse, tiled; 16 m²
• Middle Storehouse: late Edo; two-storey earthen storehouse, tiled; 20 m²
• North Storehouse: late Edo, altered in 1913; two-storey earthen storehouse, tiled; 59 m²
• Rear Rice Storehouse: late Edo, altered around 1965; two-storey earthen storehouse, tiled; 21 m²
• North Barn: early Showa; single-storey timber, tiled; 68 m²
• East Barn: late Edo, altered in 1995; two-storey timber, tiled; 60 m²
• East Gate and Barn: late Edo, altered in the early Taisho period and in 1995; single-storey timber, tiled; 39 m²
• Front Rice Storehouse: late Edo, altered in the early Taisho period and in 1999; two-storey earthen storehouse, tiled; 48 m²
• Front Gate: late Edo, altered in the early Taisho and mid-Showa periods; single-storey timber, tiled; 76 m²
• Garden Gate and Earthen Wall: late Edo; timber gate 2.0 meters wide and tiled wall 21 meters long
• Earthen Wall: late Edo, altered in the mid-Meiji period, the early Showa period and 1999; tiled; 166 meters long

Only the main house has a firm construction date. The storehouses, barns, gates and walls are placed in the late Edo period, between 1830 and 1868, with the single exception of the North Barn, which dates from the early Showa period. For the Front Gate and the East Gate and Barn, the database's period field reads Meiji and Taisho respectively, which does not match the late Edo date given in its dating field; Osaka Bunkazai Navi describes the Front Gate as a mid-Meiji rebuilding.

Osaka Bunkazai Navi regards the main house, despite changes made in the mid-Meiji period, as a valuable survivor from 1784 and as a mature example of the large six-room farmhouse plan.

How the Estate Is Laid Out

At the center of the Former Inoue Family Residence stands the main house, facing south, a long building with a Yamatomune roof. A garden spreads to the south of it. A garden gate stands toward the north end of that garden's east side, with a wall running south from it along the path from the front gate to the house.

Northwest of the main house is the small Inner Storehouse, with the Middle Storehouse beyond it and the North Storehouse raised on a stone wall at the western edge. East of the North Storehouse come the Rear Rice Storehouse and then the North Barn, both facing south, closing off the north side of the estate.

The east side is a continuous row of buildings on the street: from north to south, the East Barn, the East Gate and Barn, and the Front Rice Storehouse, which occupies the southeast corner beside an irrigation pond. On the south front, the Front Gate is set back a little from the road.

Because the Former Inoue Family Residence sits on a slope, the site is divided into upper and lower levels. High stone walls rise on the west and north, and a 166-meter earthen wall runs along the top of them. Osaka Bunkazai Navi likens the view of the estate from the west to that of a fortified manor.

Visiting the Former Inoue Family Residence

The Former Inoue Family Residence is not open to the public, and Osaka Bunkazai Navi lists it as closed. Please stay on the public road and view the buildings from outside only.

The easiest parts to see are the front of the Front Gate on the Daidō lane, and the row formed by the East Gate and Barn, the East Barn and the Front Rice Storehouse along the eastern street. On the west and north, the stone walls and earthen wall that form the outer edge of the estate are seen from below.

The Former Inoue Family Residence stands next to the Former Kawazumi Residence, a historic house run by Higashiosaka City. The city directs visitors to that house as about 1.2 kilometers northwest of the north exit of Ishikiri Station on the Kintetsu Nara Line, or about 700 meters east of the Minami-Kusaka stop on Kintetsu Bus. The Inoue estate lies just to its west.