Takemoto Family Residence West Main House

About the Takemoto Family Residence West Main House

The Takemoto Family Residence West Main House (竹本家住宅西主屋, Takemoto-ke Jūtaku Nishi-shuoku) is a townhouse (Machiya) built around 1932 in Kitamachi, Kaizuka City, Osaka Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2003. It is the larger, western of the two buildings that make up the Takemoto Family Residence (Kitamachi), the home of a family that made boxwood combs.

It is a two-story timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 161 square meters. The West Main House faces south onto Horinocho-suji, a street in Kaizuka's old temple town, and the much smaller East Main House, from the late Edo period, abuts it on the east.

Why the West Main House Was Registered

The Takemoto Family Residence West Main House was registered on March 18, 2003, as No. 27-0225, under the criterion "contributing to the historic landscape of the country." The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as an example of a modern townhouse in Kaizuka.

What earns it that description is the way an old floor plan meets a new street front. Inside, the West Main House keeps the classic townhouse layout. Its frontage is three and a half bays (ken), about 6.4 meters, and the east side is given over to a Doma, an earth-floored passage running from the street to the back, with three rooms lined up one behind another to the west of it. Outside, the Showa era shows plainly. The front is plastered over and carried up high, and the upper floor is as large as the ground floor, a full second story rather than a cramped loft.

Many Edo-period townhouses kept their upper floors low. The West Main House sets the taller townhouse profile of the Showa years on top of a traditional plan, and it was registered as a record of that change in Kaizuka's streets.

What to Look For: A Tall Front Beside an Edo House

Look at the Takemoto Family Residence West Main House together with its eastern neighbor. The East Main House stands on ground about 60 centimeters higher, yet its body is low and its roof sits below the West Main House roof. Even starting from lower ground, the 1930s house carries its eaves and ridge above the Edo one, and the comparison makes the full second story easy to read.

Then look at the wall itself. The agency's description notes that the front is plastered in, and the West Main House presents a tall, solid face across the whole three-and-a-half-bay width, rising unbroken to the upper eaves.

Keep the family trade in mind as well. Kaizuka City records that the Takemoto family made boxwood combs until the early Showa era, and the agency describes the West Main House as a townhouse where the local specialty was produced until that time. Its construction around 1932 falls near the end of those comb-making years.

Visiting the West Main House

The Takemoto Family Residence West Main House is a private home, and no information about opening the interior is available (checked October 1, 2026). What you can see is the south front on Horinocho-suji. Stand near the line where it meets the East Main House to see the difference in roof height most clearly.

Photograph only the exterior from the street, and be considerate of the residents. Directions to the property are on the Takemoto Family Residence (Kitamachi) page.