Watari Family Residence

The Watari Family Residence

The Watari Family Residence (亘家住宅, Watari-ke Jūtaku) in Uchihonmachi, Suita City, Osaka Prefecture, is the estate of an old local family whose five buildings, from a main house of the mid-Edo period to a rice storehouse of 1907, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on October 18, 2006 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The five registered buildings are the main house, the annex, the nagayamon gate, the storehouse and the rice storehouse, under the consecutive registration numbers 27-0383 to 27-0387 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). They belong to a private owner, and Suita City describes them as a large farmhouse complex of the mid-Edo, late Edo and Meiji periods.

According to Osaka Bunkazai Navi, the Watari were a branch of the Watari Kiemon family, who served as local intendants for the Takenaka, a Hatamoto house holding land here, and the branch has lived on this site since the twelfth month of 1656. In its note on the annex, the Agency calls the Watari Family Residence the house of a village headman.

How the Five Buildings Are Arranged

The Watari Family Residence occupies an irregular plot that runs long from east to west, with the main house standing in the middle and facing south (Agency for Cultural Affairs). A private lane leads west from the road on the east side and ends at the Nagayamon gate in the southeast corner; from its passage one reaches the earth-floored entrance of the main house and the formal entry step of the annex.

The rice storehouse stands close beside the gate to its northeast, and together the two give the estate its front. The annex lies south of the main house and was later joined to it by a corridor. In the northwest corner the storehouse and the inner storehouse projecting from the main house enclose the back garden (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The main house was built in the mid-Edo period and extended in the late Edo period and again in 1894 and 1907, and the annex was remodelled at the end of the Edo period (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The spread of dates shows an estate shaped a little at a time over generations. Each building is described on its own page.

Visiting the Watari Family Residence

The Watari Family Residence is a private home, and Osaka Bunkazai Navi lists the main house as not open to visitors. No official notice of regular or special openings was found. Please do not enter the private lane or the grounds.

The address is 2-13-10 Uchihonmachi, Suita City, about 500 metres east-southeast of Suita Station on the Hankyu Senri Line and about 700 metres south of JR Suita Station on the JR Kyoto Line, both measured in a straight line from map coordinates.