Tanaka Family Residence Main House

The Tanaka Family Residence Main House

The Tanaka Family Residence Main House (田中家住宅主屋, Tanaka-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a farmhouse built around 1872 in Takaminosato, Matsubara City, Osaka Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on August 3, 2006. It stands toward the north of the plot on an east-west axis and covers 211 square metres.

It measures 10 and a half by 4 and a half bays under a hip-and-gable pantile roof with a low tsushi attic storey, whose front is pierced with slatted mushiko windows. Matsubara City describes the exterior as townhouse-like.

Four Rooms and a Big Earthen Floor

Of the five registered buildings, only the Tanaka Family Residence Main House was registered as a model of its type. The east end is an earth-floored doma; the west end holds four raised rooms in a regular two-by-two grid. The city notes that despite some additions the house keeps its original form well.

The doma is generous, taking up 5 and a half of the 10 and a half bays. The Agency for Cultural Affairs also singles out the accounting counter set in front of the Buddhist altar room on the south side, placing the family's business desk right beside its ancestors.

Painted Doors and Lattice Windows

According to a Matsubara City history-walk article, the formal rooms still have sliding doors painted in the later Edo period: a heron in snow bearing the seal of Kogetsu Eishun Shigenobu, and scenes of farming through the four seasons. Paintings older than the house itself have stayed with it.

From outside, look for the finely latticed mushiko windows on the upper front; their position shows how the low attic storey sits over the single-storey eaves.

Access

The Main House stands behind the outer wall and nagaya gate. Matsubara City states that the house is still lived in and that the grounds and buildings cannot be visited.