Kaname Family Residence Middle Gate

The Gate to the Garden

The Kaname Family Residence Middle Gate (要家住宅中門, Kaname-ke Jūtaku Nakamon) is a later-Edo-period gate on the Kaname family estate in Hatakenaka 2-chome, Kaizuka, Osaka Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on June 28, 2017.

Attached to the west end of the Front Shoin, it divides the formal front of the estate from the main garden. The single-storey timber structure has a gabled roof of hongawara tile and a building area of 9.6 square metres, the smallest building among the eleven listings. On its west side are a covered waiting bench and a privy.

Why It Was Listed

The Kaname Family Residence Middle Gate was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs says it was built in preparation for the domain lord's visits, lending the estate formality and giving the grounds their character.

If the two gatehouses at the entrance sorted guests from household, this gate marked the next threshold, from the ceremonial forecourt of the Front Shoin into the pond garden. Records show a young lord fishing the Kaname pond, so on a day of onari this was where the program turned from formal audience to leisure.

Small as it is, it was built as one with the Front Shoin and fixes the order in which the estate's spaces unfold.

Design Details

The opening is a modest 1.8 metres wide. Compare the 2.7-metre formal gate at the front and the 2-metre inner gate, and the Middle Gate completes a progression: the deeper you go, the smaller and finer the gates become.

Its walls are finished in iro-tsuchi, colored clay plaster, softer and warmer than white lime plaster. The Agency calls the gate elegant, and its manner belongs to the world of the tea house rather than the storeroom.

The waiting bench on the west side, a koshikake machiai, is where tea guests sat before being called in, and the adjoining privy points the same way. The Middle Gate seems to have served not only as the way into the garden but also as the entrance to a tea path. Gate, bench and privy under one small roof hold the choreography of an afternoon's hospitality.

Visiting

The Kaname Family Residence Middle Gate is part of a private home and is not open to the public. It stands inside the walled grounds, west of the Front Shoin, and cannot be seen from outside. No viewing events were announced as of September 25, 2026.

An exterior photograph appears in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database.