Former Umino Family Residence

Former Umino Family Residence

The Former Umino Family Residence (旧海野家住宅, Kyū Umino-ke Jūtaku) in Sukematsucho, Izumiotsu City, Osaka Prefecture, is a Western-style house of 1928 whose main house, wall and fountain were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on May 2, 2017 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The family name is read Umino, and the property is privately owned (Osaka Prefecture).

All three were registered as contributing to the historic landscape of the country, under the consecutive numbers 27-0665 to 27-0667, following the advisory council's report of November 18, 2016 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

A Villa on the Sukematsu Shore

According to the Izumiotsu City Board of Education, the Umino house was built as a villa for Umino Hachirō. It stands in the Sukematsu seaside estate, which the Minami-Hamadera Tochi company began to develop after its founding in February 1920; the plots were sold by Kansai Tochi, the company behind the Ōmino garden suburb in Sakai. Newspaper advertisements of the time promised mains water and drainage, and sea bathing in summer.

A Western house was a rare sight on what was then a quiet fishing shore, and the board sees it as an early step in the prewar growth of housing along this coast.

How the Grounds Fit Together

The two-storey timber main house stands at the centre, with Western rooms below and Japanese rooms above (Agency for Cultural Affairs). A garden opens to its south-east, with the fountain at its heart. The registered wall is chiefly the outer wall on the west side of the plot; from its midpoint a wall fountain runs east to divide the garden, and a low garden wall closes the east side of the front garden.

The Agency's report describes the arcaded wall and the garden fountain as giving order to the grounds together with the house. White walls, red tiles and repeated arches (Osaka Bunkazai Navi) tie house, garden and boundary into one composition. Each structure is covered on its own page.

Visiting

The Former Umino Family Residence is a private home, and Osaka Bunkazai Navi lists it as closed to visitors. Please view it from outside and do not enter the grounds.

Izumiotsu City opened the house at its Cultural Property Open Day on December 6, 2025, showing the exterior and part of the interior, along with a guided walk to the Sukematsu village boundary stones and the former Sukematsu beach; about 80 people took part (Izumiotsu City Board of Education). No date for a further opening has been announced.

The nearest station is Matsunohama on the Nankai Main Line; the Umino house lies about 450 metres north-east of it in a straight line. Kita-Sukematsu Station, on the same line, is about 650 metres away.