Nakayama Family Residence Main House

What Is the Nakayama Family Residence Main House?

The Nakayama Family Residence Main House (中山家住宅主屋, Nakayama-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is the farmhouse at the heart of the Nakayama estate in Bessho, Matsubara City, Osaka Prefecture, built in 1805 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 2, 2004.

With a building area of 439 square meters, it is by far the largest of the estate's fourteen registered structures. It is a single-story timber house with a low tsushi-nikai attic floor under a tiled roof. Three rear reception rooms on the west side were added in 1830, and both dates come from the family's own records.

Why the Main House Was Registered

The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out its heavy timbers and fine joinery, which it reads as the confident bearing of a wealthy farming family. The plan is a regular six-room layout, two rows of three rooms, and of the house's length of 11 and a half bays the eastern 4 are given over to an earth-floored doma work area.

The Nakayama Family Residence Main House was never meant to stand alone. An entrance porch projects from the south front, an inner storehouse connects on the north, and a doma with a well opens to the east, tying the house into the outbuildings around it. That network surviving intact is a large part of why fourteen structures, not one, were registered.

Smoke Roof and Stepped-Down Wing

The detail that gives the roofline its character is the koshi-yane, a small raised roof riding above the doma that let smoke and heat from the cooking fires escape.

To the west the roof steps down over the 1830 addition, so the original house and the later reception rooms can be told apart by roof height alone.

Photographs on Matsubara City's heritage page show the south front, with the doma entrance at the center and the formal entrance at the left end. Interior shots show the yoritsuki, the first room where guests were received, and a cooking range in the kitchen area.

The sources disagree on size. The Agency gives the length as 11 and a half bays; a Matsubara City local history article gives 19 and a half bays by 5. It does not say whether the larger figure includes attached buildings.

Visiting the Main House

The Nakayama Family Residence Main House is still a family home, and its interior is not open. Standing in the middle of the estate behind storehouses and walls, it is also hard to see from the street.

The city's photographs are the closest look most people will get. Directions to the estate and what can be seen from outside are covered on the Nakayama Family Residence page.