Kirihata Family Residence Main House

A Meiji Town House Facing Hama-dori

The Kirihata Family Residence Main House (桐畑家住宅主屋) is the main house of a town house (machiya) of the mid-Meiji period in Chuo, Otsu City, Shiga Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on April 28, 2010 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a 2-storey timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 119 square metres; registration number 25-0284.

A Four-Room Town House on Hama-dori

The Kirihata Family Residence Main House faces north onto Hama-dori (also called Hamamachi-dori) in Chuo 1-chome. Its frontage is 7.3 metres; the two-storey timber house has a gabled roof of interlocking pantiles and a pent roof across the front (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Inside, an earth-floored passage, the toriniwa, runs along the west side, with four rooms lined up in a single row beside it. Upstairs, the room on the street side is a formal tatami room with a hanging alcove, or tsuridoko (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency dates the house to the mid-Meiji period, with alterations in the early Showa period and in 1999. Otsu City notes that the family still keeps a copy of an application, with a floor plan attached, dated 1904, and treats it as evidence for the mid-Meiji date.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency singles out the facade, with a projecting lattice on the ground floor and, above, eaves carried on projecting beams and decorated every half bay with a large bearing block and bracket arm. The house was registered as contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

On October 1, 2024, Otsu City named the Kirihata Family Residence Main House, together with the annex and storehouse, its Historic Landscape Building No. 2 (Otsu City).

What to Look For

Look up at the upper eaves. Every half bay, a large bearing block with a bracket arm, a detail borrowed from temple and shrine carpentry, punctuates the street front (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

According to Otsu City, these blocks and arms were fitted after the eaves were cut back in 1926. The facade of the Kirihata Family Residence Main House, built in the mid-Meiji period, therefore carries a layer added in the first year of Showa; compare it with the ground-floor lattice.

Visiting

The Kirihata Family Residence Main House is privately owned, and no official information on interior access was found. The north-facing front, with its lattice and bracketed eaves, can be seen from Hama-dori; please view it from the street without entering the property.