Yamamoto Family Residence (Suita)

About the Yamamoto Family Residence in Suita

The Yamamoto Family Residence (山本家住宅, Yamamoto-ke Jūtaku) is an old family homestead in Saidera 2-chome, Suita City, Osaka Prefecture, whose late Edo period main house and two Taisho era structures, the east storehouse and the north storehouse with front gate, became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on December 5, 2019. All three share the address 4035 Saidera 2-chome, and Suita City lists the owner as a private individual.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the Yamamotos as a long-established family that served as kimoiri, the headman who handled village affairs. Saidera is an old settlement on a ridge of the Senri Hills, and Suita City notes that the former villages of Saidera and Kasuga still keep traces of their historic streetscape. The Yamamoto homestead is one of the households that held on to its traditional layout there.

There are other Yamamoto Family Residences in Osaka Prefecture, in Taishi and Kawachinagano. This page covers the one in Saidera, Suita.

How the Buildings Sit on the Plot

Combining the Agency's descriptions gives the following layout:

• The main house is the heart of the homestead, a thatched house with an Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable roof, its thatch now protected by a temporary copper covering. It has a formal Shikidai entrance at the center of its front and a lean-to Geya all round, with a footprint of 261 square meters.
• The north storehouse and front gate line the passage along the north edge of the plot, the storehouse to the west and a hip-and-gable gate to the east. The two are registered together as one property.
• The east storehouse stands toward the north end of the east side, facing west. Suita City describes it as the storehouse in the northeast of the plot.

The north edge, with its storehouse and gate, is the formal front of the homestead, and the east storehouse completes that northeast corner. The Agency calls the storehouse-and-gate pairing an imposing frontage and the east storehouse one corner of the homestead's northeastern scenery.

Registration and Dates

The three structures were entered on the register in its 94th round on December 5, 2019, with notice the same day. Their numbers run consecutively, 27-0786 for the main house, 27-0787 for the east storehouse and 27-0788 for the north storehouse and front gate, and all three qualify as contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

Their dates span about a century. The main house belongs to the late Edo period and was renovated in 1931 and again in 2017. The east storehouse was built in 1923 and renovated around 1972. The Agency places the north storehouse and gate in the late Taisho period, and Suita City says they went up at about the same time as the east storehouse. In other words, an Edo-period house was given a new storehouse-and-gate frontage in the 1920s.

Suita City regards the three together as the core of a historic village landscape, and its records show a registration plaque for the Yamamoto Family Residence was installed in fiscal 2020.

Visiting the Yamamoto Family Residence in Suita

The Yamamoto Family Residence is a private home, and no public or special openings could be found. Assume the grounds and buildings cannot be entered and view the property from outside. The formal front is on the north side of the plot. Take photographs only from the public road and be considerate of the residents and of passing traffic.

The nearest station is Senriyama on the Hankyu Senri Line, about 1.2 kilometers from the house in a straight line. Because the old village of Saidera sits on a ridge, expect some climbing on the way.