Kimura Family Residence Main House

The Kimura Family Residence Main House in Enokojima

The Kimura Family Residence Main House (木村家住宅主屋, Kimura-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a two-storey timber Western-style house of the early Taisho era (1912 to 1925) in Enokojima 2-chome, Nishi Ward, Osaka City, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 3 August 2006. It stands on the left bank of the Kizu River and is said to have been built as an official residence of Osaka Prefecture.

The walls are clad in overlapping horizontal weatherboards, Shitami-itabari, under a tiled roof, and the building area is 81 square meters. It carries registration number 27-0368 and was listed as a model of design. A cotton merchant's estate in Yao City has a registered building of the same name, but this Enokojima house is a separate property of a different place and period.

A Taisho-era official residence

The Agency for Cultural Affairs values the Kimura Family Residence Main House as a rare Western-style official residence of the Taisho era. Its use as housing for prefectural staff is recorded as tradition; the Agency's description names no builder, date of construction or occupant.

From July 1874 to October 1926, Enokojima was home to the second Osaka Prefectural Office. The house went up in the early Taisho years, while the office was still on the island, so a prefectural residence nearby would fit the period. Any direct link between this house and the prefectural office, however, has not been confirmed.

A century after the office moved to Otemae, little remains of Enokojima as a seat of government. A small timber Western-style house surviving here is one of the few reminders of that chapter of modern Osaka.

The exterior and plan of the Main House

The entrance is in the middle of the ground floor on the east side, under a gabled front whose bargeboards carry a yōraku ornament. The word originally means the hanging jeweled fringes on Buddhist images and canopies; here it seems to describe decoration hanging from the edge of the gable.

Inside, the room north of the entrance is Western-style, and the rest are Japanese rooms. Both floors have a Zashiki, a formal tatami reception room, in the southwest corner. A Western exterior wrapped around a mostly Japanese interior was a common answer in Taisho-era houses, and it is why the Agency listed the building as a model of design.

Visiting the Kimura Family Residence Main House

The Kimura Family Residence Main House is not open to the public, and no visiting information has been published. The Agency's database gives no owner, and the house is most likely a private home. Do not enter the property, and if you take photographs, keep to the public road and respect the residents' privacy. How much of the east front can be seen from the street has not been confirmed.

The nearest station is Awaza on the Osaka Metro Chuo and Sennichimae lines. The house lies about 700 meters west of the station in a straight line, roughly a 10-minute walk. There is no visitor parking.