Kobatake Family Residence

A farmstead of eight registered buildings

The Kobatake Family Residence (古畑家住宅, Kobatake-ke Jūtaku) is a farmhouse compound in Nakahata, a hamlet in the far north of Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture, whose eight buildings, ranging from a storehouse of 1828 to a rice store of the early Showa era, were entered on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2008.

The characters of the family name are usually read Furuhata. Here they are read Kobatake, and that is the reading the Agency for Cultural Affairs gives for all eight entries.

Nakahata sits in the Kashida district, a mountain basin on the far side of the hills from central Takatsuki. The Kobatake compound is cut into a slope there. At its centre stands a large main house of the Taisho era, facing south. Around it are a detached guest wing, a gatehouse and five storehouses.

Japan registers heritage buildings one structure at a time, so the Agency's database lists the Kobatake Family Residence as eight separate entries, numbered consecutively from 27-0485 to 27-0492. On the ground it is a single household.

The buildings in order of age

The compound was not built in one campaign. Sorted by the dates in the Agency's database, the eight buildings run as follows.

• East Storehouse No. 1: 1828 (Bunsei 11). Two-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse, 15 square metres.
• East Storehouse No. 2: late Edo period (1830-1867). Two-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse, 25 square metres.
• Main House: Taisho era (1912-1925), altered around 1956. Timber, 261 square metres.
• Detached Wing: late Taisho era. Single-storey timber building, 74 square metres.
• West Storehouse: Taisho era. Two-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse, 16 square metres.
• Nagayamon Gate: Taisho era. Single-storey timber gatehouse, 19 square metres.
• New Storehouse: 1925 (Taisho 14). Two-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse, 21 square metres.
• Rice Storehouse: early Showa era. Single-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse, 49 square metres.

Only the two storehouses along the eastern road survive from the Edo period. The other six date from the Taisho era or the early Showa years, which points to a rebuilding of almost the whole household in Taisho times. No public record we could find explains what prompted it.

Seven of the eight were registered for contributing to the historic landscape. The Detached Wing was registered under a different criterion, as a model of architectural form. The Agency describes the main house as a large modern farmhouse, and credits the gatehouse and storehouses with giving the compound its street front.

A Tanba village that became part of Osaka

For most of its history Nakahata belonged to Kuwata District in the old province of Tanba, the hill country that is now central Kyoto Prefecture. Under the municipal reforms of 1889 it merged with neighbouring villages to form Kashida Village, in Minami-Kuwata District, Kyoto Prefecture. On 1 April 1958 Kashida was absorbed into the city of Takatsuki.

That transfer crossed a prefectural boundary. None of the eight buildings has moved, yet since the oldest storehouse was plastered in 1828 the jurisdiction around them has been redrawn twice. The Kobatake Family Residence is an Osaka property today, but it grew up as a Tanba farmstead.

How the compound is laid out

The main house stands in the middle of the plot and faces south. The eastern edge of the property runs along the village road, and here, from south to north, stand the Nagayamon Gate, East Storehouse No. 2 and East Storehouse No. 1. The gatehouse is joined at its northern end to the second storehouse, so from the road the gate and the storehouses read as one continuous frontage.

The Rice Storehouse occupies the southeast corner. The Detached Wing sits in the southwest, facing the main house across the yard. The West Storehouse is attached to the north side of the main house, and the New Storehouse continues beyond it. Those two stand in line on the Ishigaki stone retaining wall along the western side, their west walls forming a single face.

All five storehouses are finished in white Shikkui lime plaster above a skirt of vertical boarding. Four of them, East Nos. 1 and 2, the West Storehouse and the New Storehouse, also carry a gabled okiyane, a separate roof set over the clay walls, with the plaster carried up to wrap its eaves. Close to a century separates the oldest from the newest, yet they were finished to the same pattern.

Visiting and getting there

The Kobatake Family Residence is privately owned and lived in. It is not open to the public, and neither the grounds nor any interior can be visited. As of 26 September 2026 we found no open days or special viewings announced by the Agency for Cultural Affairs or the city of Takatsuki.

What can be seen from outside is the line of buildings on the eastern road: the Nagayamon Gate, East Storehouse No. 2 and East Storehouse No. 1. That road is the village's everyday lane and runs past the family's front door. If you stop to look, stand where you are not blocking traffic, keep photographs to the exterior as seen from the public road, and avoid pointing a camera into the grounds or at residents.

By public transport, take a Takatsuki Municipal Bus bound for Kashida (the Tano, Sugiu, Nakahata and Niryo line) from the terminal on the north side of JR Takatsuki Station. The route climbs north on the Hirakata-Kameoka prefectural road and links the hamlets of the Kashida district. Services are sparse: a 2019 city report counted nine weekday departures from the station towards Kashida. Check the current Takatsuki Municipal Bus timetable before setting out. There is no designated parking for visitors.