Nishiyama Family Residence

What Is the Nishiyama Family Residence?

The Nishiyama Family Residence (西山家住宅, Nishiyama-ke Jūtaku) is a prewar suburban house in Okamachiminami, Toyonaka City, Osaka Prefecture, occupied by the Nishiyama family from 1912, whose main house, main gate and high wall, detached wing and waiting arbor, Western-style building, connecting corridor and east high wall were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan in 2007 and 2018.

The six registrations came in two rounds. On December 5, 2007, the detached wing and waiting arbor, the Western-style building, the corridor and the high wall became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (numbers 27-0433 to 27-0436). The main house and the main gate with its wall followed on November 2, 2018 (27-0755 and 27-0756).

The garden these buildings enclose was designated a national Place of Scenic Beauty on October 16, 2019, under the name Nishiyama-shi Teien (Seiryūtei, the Blue Dragon Garden). It was laid out in 1940 to a design by Mirei Shigemori, one of the best-known garden makers of twentieth-century Japan. Toyonaka City bought the land and buildings in January 2020 and now manages the site as the Nishiyama Garden and Nishiyama Family Residence.

A Railway-Suburb House That Kept Growing

The Nishiyama Family Residence stands in Okamachi, one of the commuter suburbs that grew up along what is now the Hankyu Takarazuka Line. The plots were put on sale in 1912 by the Okamachi Housing Company, an affiliate of the Minoo-Arima Electric Railway, Hankyu's predecessor. Selling ready-built houses beside a new line, sometimes on monthly installments, was the railway's way of creating its own commuters; Toyonaka's preservation plan counts Okamachi as the third such estate on the line, after Ikeda Muromachi (1910) and Sakurai (1911).

In October 1912 the Nishiyama family, whose head was then manager of a hardware wholesaler in Osaka, bought a house and lot here and moved out of the city. The surviving contract describes a 300-tsubo plot (about 990 square meters) with a two-storey tiled house of just 25.5 tsubo, plus a gate, a fence and a well, for 6,100 yen. The house was small for the land.

It did not stay small. A little Western-style building went up around 1914, and a detached tatami wing in 1929. From 1939 the architect Takao Okada, of the Mitsukoshi department store's Osaka housing division, remodeled the Western-style building and added the corridor. In 1940 Okada introduced the owner, Ushinosuke Nishiyama, to Mirei Shigemori, who redesigned the garden; the Kyoto gardener Junichirō Kawasaki carried out the work, and the tea room was rebuilt and the waiting arbor added in the same campaign.

What makes the Nishiyama Family Residence unusual is the paperwork. Estimates, drawings, Shigemori's published work diary and period photographs all survive, so the order of building and rebuilding is known in close detail.

How the Nishiyama Family Residence Is Laid Out

The plot is long and narrow, about 47 meters north to south and 22 meters east to west. Tall walls faced with charred cedar boards close off the north and east sides, and the main gate opens near the east end of the north wall.

Inside the gate, a stone path curves gently toward the front door of the main house, which occupies the north end. South of the house lies a small inner garden, and beyond it the main dry garden, Seiryūtei. From the southwest corner of the house, a roofed corridor climbs south along the garden to the Western-style building, set on a raised base. A short flight of steps leads down from there to the detached wing, with its tea room and entrance on the east and the waiting arbor tucked into the southeast corner.

Walk the buildings in that order and the garden turns slowly in front of you, seen first from the house, then from the corridor, then from the tatami rooms of the detached wing. Each of the six buildings has its own page with details on what to look for.

Restoration of the Nishiyama Family Residence

After the 2019 designation, Toyonaka City took the Nishiyama Family Residence into public ownership in January 2020. The buildings were by then 90 to 120 years old, weathered and storm-damaged, and a seismic survey showed they were not yet safe for regular visitors.

Repairs began in fiscal 2024 and are proceeding building by building. The detached wing, waiting arbor and Western-style building were finished by the end of fiscal 2025, and the city marked the reopening of the detached wing with a ceremony on January 18, 2026. Work on the main house and high wall continued through 2026. The city aims to open the whole site to the public in fiscal 2028.

Visiting the Nishiyama Family Residence

As of October 2, 2026, the Nishiyama Family Residence has no regular opening hours. Toyonaka City holds talks, guided tours, tea gatherings and similar events on site roughly once a month, and joining one is the way to get inside. Most require advance registration through the city's online application system, with a lottery if too many people apply. Some events are free and others charge a fee. Dates are posted on the city's Nishiyama Garden and Nishiyama Family Residence page, which is in Japanese.

The main gate and north wall, and the long east wall, can be seen from the street at any time. The house sits in a quiet residential district, so please keep noise down when you stop to look.

The street address is 2-14-55 Okamachiminami, Toyonaka. From Okamachi Station on the Hankyu Takarazuka Line, walk about 400 meters west, roughly 5 minutes. There is no parking. Inquiries go to the Cultural Properties Section of the Toyonaka City Board of Education (06-6858-2581).