Former Nakamura Family Residence Main House

Former Nakamura Family Residence Main House

The Former Nakamura Family Residence Main House (旧中村家住宅主屋, Kyū-Nakamura-ke Jūtaku Omoya) is the 1914 dwelling at the centre of a village headman's estate in Ōmano-chō, Koshigaya City, Saitama Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 14, 2021. It is a single-storey timber house under a hipped roof (Yosemune-zukuri) laid with pantiles, covering 218 square metres, with a rear gate attached.

The house sits a little north of the middle of the grounds and faces south. Lean-to eaves (Geya) wrap all four sides, and at the west end of the south front a formal entrance porch, the Shikidai, pushes forward under its own hip-and-gable roof. Koshigaya City's leaflet suggests the house took around five years to finish.

Inside, the plan splits cleanly in two. The eastern half is an earth-floored work area (Doma). The western half is raised and floored, with five rooms set out in three rows.

Why the Main House was registered

The Main House was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a well-built modern house that records the family's growing prosperity: a concrete picture of what a household that had served as village heads in the Edo period chose to build at the start of the Taishō era.

The key is the western row: a suite of connected reception rooms finished with choice timbers around the alcove, leading guests deeper into the house. Together with the porch entrance, the suite turned a headman's rank into architecture.

The doma to the east, meanwhile, carried the daily work of a farming household. Guests on one side, labour on the other, both under one roof.

After the family gave the estate to Koshigaya City in 1997, the house was repaired in 2003 and returned to its original form.

What to look for

Begin in the south yard and look at the roof as a whole. The eaves run unbroken around the base of the big hipped roof, and only at the west end does the gabled porch step forward. That single change of roof shape tells anyone arriving which door was meant for visitors.

Inside, make for the western reception rooms and study the alcove timbers. The Agency's own record photographs the inner room, the oku-zashiki.

The leaflet's floor plan labels a main living room, the reception rooms, a bedroom and a boarded room. On the doma side it marks the principal pillar (daikokubashira), the place where a bath once stood, and a cooking range whose smoke was drawn away underground. That hearth is worth searching out as you cross the earthen floor.

Visiting the Main House

The Main House is open inside. It was closed for repair work from January 21, 2025, and reopened on April 1, 2025. On roughly ten days a year some rooms are shut for school field trips and events.

Household tools and records of the Nakamura family are displayed in the rooms. The grain of the alcove timbers is easiest to follow when daylight comes in from the garden side.

Opening hours, admission and directions are covered on the Former Nakamura Family Residence page.