Tatsukawa Family Residence

What Is the Tatsukawa Family Residence?

The Tatsukawa Family Residence (立川家住宅, Tatsukawa-ke Jūtaku) is the estate of a family of shredded-tobacco makers in Tsuji, Ikawa-cho, Miyoshi City, Tokushima Prefecture, whose four buildings, centred on a main house of about 1903, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan in 2017. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives the reading as Tatsukawa.

The property sits in the middle of Tsuji's old merchant quarter, on a lane that runs down from the old highway towards the Yoshino River. The main house faces east onto that lane. Behind it stand an inner storehouse and a detached annex, and a large storehouse closes off the west end of the plot. The four buildings date from the mid-Meiji era to the Taisho era, so walking the plot from front to back is a way of reading one household's fortunes, from its trading peak to the turn that followed.

Tsuji, a Tobacco Town, and the Tatsukawa Family Residence

Ikawa-cho and its neighbour Ikeda-cho owe their old streetscapes to two things: river transport on the Yoshino and the tobacco trade. Miyoshi City's plan for maintaining its historic character records that the finely shredded tobacco made in these two towns found buyers across Japan and brought the area a prosperity it had never known. The same plan names Ikawa-cho's streets of houses with Udatsu firewalls among the townscapes it sets out to protect.

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Tatsukawa family made and sold shredded tobacco from the Edo period onward. Of the four surviving buildings of the Tatsukawa Family Residence, the storehouse is the oldest, dated to the mid-Meiji era, while the main house and the inner storehouse are dated to around 1903.

The following year everything changed. The Tobacco Monopoly Act came into force in July 1904, placing the whole chain from buying leaf to manufacturing and selling under state control, and private tobacco manufacturing came to an end. The annex, built in the Taisho era, is explained by the Agency as a house put up by a head of the family who had found success elsewhere after the monopoly and wanted to come back to Tsuji. The main house, finished on the eve of that upheaval, and the annex built for the homecoming that came years later both stand on the same plot.

The Four Registered Buildings of the Tatsukawa Family Residence

All four buildings of the Tatsukawa Family Residence were registered together on 27 October 2017, in the 88th round of registrations, following the Council for Cultural Affairs' recommendation of 21 July 2017. Their registration numbers run from 36-173 to 36-176. The main house was registered under the criterion for buildings that serve as a model of design; the annex, inner storehouse and storehouse were registered as contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency's database gives the following dates and structures.

• Main house (36-173): around 1903; wooden, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 111 m²
• Annex (36-174): Taisho era (1912 to 1926); wooden, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 85 m²
• Inner storehouse (36-175): around 1903; dozo construction, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 19 m²
• Storehouse (36-176): mid-Meiji era (1883 to 1897); dozo construction, 2 storeys, sheet-metal roof, building area 107 m²

Main houses and storehouses belonging to several other merchant families in Tsuji were registered on the same day, so the Tatsukawa Family Residence forms part of a single round of registrations that documents the town as a whole.

How the Tatsukawa Family Residence Is Laid Out

The main house is the building that meets the lane. It is a Machiya townhouse with a low Tsushi-nikai upper floor under a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles, and a short wing wall of the udatsu type rises above the eaves of the front canopy. A courtyard opens behind the main house, and across it, at the end of a corridor running back from the house, stands the small inner storehouse.

The annex occupies the middle of the plot, and the large storehouse, the oldest of the four, stands at its west end. The main house presented the business to the lane; further in are the storehouses that held the household's goods and the later house built for the family's return. Each building has its own page covering its construction and what to look for.

Visiting the Tatsukawa Family Residence

The Tatsukawa Family Residence is not open to the public, and no interior viewings or open days are announced (checked 2 October 2026). The Agency's database does not list an owner. Please stay off the property and view the exterior from the lane the main house faces. There is no published rule on photography; taking pictures of the exterior from the road is the sensible limit, keeping clear of traffic and neighbours.

The nearest station is Tsuji on the JR Tokushima Line. The Tokushima Prefecture tourism site puts the walk from Tsuji Station to the Miyoshi City Ikawa Branch Office, close to the old quarter, at about 10 minutes, and the Tatsukawa Family Residence lies within the same district.

For a closer look at the town, the Miyoshi City Tourism Association runs a guided walk, Ikawa-cho Tsuji: Following the Road of Awa Tobacco. According to the listing it runs on Saturdays and Sundays all year, costs 500 yen per person (the same for children), must be booked at least 3 days ahead, and starts from the Ikawa Branch Office (checked 2 October 2026). The listing does not say that the walk includes a visit inside the Tatsukawa Family Residence.