Hiroumi Family Residence

A Shipping Merchant's Compound on the Old Shore of Kaizuka

The Hiroumi Family Residence (廣海家住宅) is the compound of a former shipping and fertilizer merchant family in Nishimachi, Kaizuka City, Osaka Prefecture, whose main house was built in 1861 and whose 8 buildings were entered on Japan's national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2003.

Kaizuka grew up as a jinaicho, a town laid out around a Jodo Shinshu temple, in this case Ganzenji. The Hiroumi Family Residence sits toward the western edge of that town, in a district that once ran down to the beach. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the family as having built on a large plot along the former shoreline. The sea has since retreated, but the address still tells you how this household made its money.

The name is read two ways. The Agency's national database gives Hiroumi-ke jutaku, while Kaizuka City's heritage page gives Hiromi-ke jutaku. This site follows the national database and writes Hiroumi, keeping the older character 廣 used in the registered name.

From Coastal Shipping to the Fertilizer Trade

According to Kaizuka City, the family business began in 1835. Hiro, a daughter of the Myose family, prominent townspeople of the temple town, took in an adopted husband from the Tatsuuma Han'emon family of sake brewers in Naruo (now part of Nishinomiya, Hyogo). The Bokuhan family of Ganzenji, who governed the temple town, granted the couple the surname Hiroumi, and they opened a wholesale shipping house.

By the Keio era (1865 to 1868) the house owned 4 large wooden cargo ships and was trading in rice and fertilizer from the Hokuriku coast, the Sea of Japan side of Tohoku, and Hokkaido.

The family left shipping in 1883 but carried on as fertilizer wholesalers until the Second World War and helped found local businesses, among them the Kaizuka Bank. The Meiji-period storehouse, barn and retirement annex on the property show a household that kept growing after its ships were gone.

How the Compound Is Laid Out

The Hiroumi Family Residence fronts the old Koginocho-suji street and occupies almost an entire block, about 73 meters east to west and 36 meters north to south. The main house faces north onto the street with one long run of eaves; storehouses, the annex and the barn stand behind it.

The 8 registered structures, roughly in order of age:

• Main House: 1861. A single-storey tiled townhouse 18 and a half ken wide, filling the north side of the lot.
• Middle Storehouse: late Edo period. Family tradition calls it the oldest storehouse, and the Agency dates it slightly before the main house.
• Living Room Storehouse: late Edo period. South of the main house's west end, linked to the reception rooms by a covered passage.
• Lower Storehouse: late Edo period. A two-storey storehouse, 5 ken long, just south of the Middle Storehouse.
• High Wall: early Meiji period. An earthen wall running south from the main house to the barn.
• Barn: mid-Meiji period. A single-storey fireproof storehouse building in the southeast corner.
• New Storehouse: late Meiji period. Near the southwest corner, and as the name says, the newest of the storehouses.
• Annex: late Meiji period. A retirement cottage behind the main house, finished in the sukiya manner.

All 8 were registered with effect from July 1, 2003 under consecutive numbers 27-0249 to 27-0256. Only the main house was registered under the criterion of being difficult to reproduce; the other 7 were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape. On the east side the main house, the high wall and the barn line up as one continuous street front, a quality the Agency singles out.

Visiting the Hiroumi Family Residence

The Hiroumi Family Residence is a privately owned home and its interiors are not normally open. A feature by the Osaka Convention and Tourism Bureau notes that concerts and similar events are occasionally held in the main house, but there are no fixed opening days. The Kaizuka Jinaicho preservation association says the same of all 13 registered townhouses in the temple town: many are still lived in, and interiors are closed as a rule.

A visit here means looking from the street. The long north front of the main house and the run of wall from the high wall to the barn on the east side are the parts you can see best from the road. Please stay off the property and avoid photographing through gates or windows. No published photography rule from the owners could be found, so keep your camera to the exterior as seen from the public road.

The nearest station is Kaizuka on the Nankai Main Line, under an hour by train from central Osaka. The temple town lies on the west side of the station. Kaizuka City's walking course starts at the station and passes Kanda Shrine, Ganzenji and the Horinocho streetscape before reaching the Nishimachi townscape. Walking straight from the station to Nishimachi takes about 15 minutes. The Plat Kaizuka tourist information centre, right outside the ticket gates, can arrange volunteer guides.