A Naval Officer's Tokyo House, Rebuilt in the Suburbs
The Maki Family Western-Style Residence (真木家住宅洋館, Maki-ke Jūtaku Yōkan, also written Maki-ke Jutaku Yokan) is a two-storey timber house at Kamiishiwara in Chōfu City, western Tokyo, built around 1910 in the late Meiji period and entered on Japan's national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 28 April 2000.
It did not begin its life in Chōfu. The record kept by the Agency for Cultural Affairs identifies the building as the former Tokyo residence of Maki Nagayoshi, a vice admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy who held the rank of baron, and locates that residence in Shirokane, a district of walled gardens and long driveways in what is now Minato Ward. In 1937 the house was dismantled and reassembled roughly eighteen kilometres to the west, on ground that at the time belonged to a farming settlement along the old Kōshū Kaidō highway.
Maki was born in 1836 into a family serving the Saga domain, studied navigation at the Nagasaki Naval Training Center during the last years of Tokugawa rule, reached the rank of vice admiral in 1885 and was created a baron in 1887. He died in 1917. If the building date of around 1910 is accurate, he took possession of this house in his mid-seventies and lived in it for the last stretch of a long career.
The government record names no architect and no builder.
That gap is common for houses of this kind. Western-style residences commissioned by Meiji officials were frequently put up by carpenter-contractors working from pattern books and from what they had seen at government projects, and the paperwork rarely survived the house. What did survive, in this case, is the fabric itself, together with a second building on the same plot: the single-storey Japanese wing, registered on the same day and joined to this one by a covered corridor.
Registered, Not Designated: What the Listing Means
Japanese cultural property law separates two things that English-language sources often blur together. A National Treasure (国宝, kokuhō) or an Important Cultural Property (重要文化財, jūyō bunkazai) has been selected by the state for strict protection, and its owner needs permission before altering it. A Registered Tangible Cultural Property (登録有形文化財, tōroku yūkei bunkazai) sits in a lighter category created by a 1996 amendment to the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties, in force from October of that year. Owners give notice before major changes, receive technical advice and tax relief, and otherwise carry on using the building.
The scheme was written for exactly this situation. Thousands of buildings from the Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa decades were being lost to redevelopment faster than anyone could survey them, and the older designation system, deliberately selective, could not absorb them. The Maki house belongs to the wider net rather than the narrow one, and the distinction matters when reading Japanese heritage lists: registration is real legal protection, but it is not the same tier as designation.
Both Maki buildings were taken onto the register in the twenty-fourth round of registrations, formally recorded on 28 April 2000 and announced in the official gazette on 25 May the same year. The Western wing carries registration number 13-0085, the Japanese wing 13-0086, the prefix being the code for Tokyo. Each was assessed under the criterion translated as "a model of design" (造形の規範となっているもの), the category applied to buildings whose composition or detailing has exemplary quality.
The official description is short and picks out three features. A porte-cochère, handled in a half-timbered manner, projects from the eastern end of the north face and forms the entrance. An octagonal bay window pushes out from the centre of the south face. And the way the decorative brick facing is laid across the exterior, together with the design of the stained glass inside, is described as showing a fresh approach for its date.
Worth pausing on the brickwork. The structure is timber framed, so the brick is a facing applied over the frame rather than load-bearing masonry, a technique that let Japanese carpenters produce the appearance of a European villa using methods they already commanded. Half-timbering and octagonal bays were by 1910 part of the standard vocabulary of Japanese domestic Western architecture, visible on suburban houses across the country. The assessment points at the handling rather than the vocabulary.
Visiting Kamiishiwara: What You Can and Cannot See
Set expectations before travelling. The Maki Family Western-Style Residence is a private house, still lived in, and neither the Agency for Cultural Affairs nor Chōfu City publishes opening hours, admission fees or tour arrangements for it. There is no way to see the interior, which means the stained glass singled out in the official assessment stays out of reach. The owner field in the national database has been left blank, as it is for privately held residences generally.
Anyone who walks past should treat the building as what it is. Stay on the public road, do not step onto the grounds or approach the entrance, and do not photograph residents. Registration confers no right of access. Questions about the property are best directed to the Local Museum of the Chōfu City Board of Education, on 042-481-7656, which handles cultural property enquiries for the city.
Getting there is straightforward. Nishi-Chōfu Station on the Keiō Line is about six minutes on foot from the south exit, and Shinjuku is roughly twenty-three minutes away by train. The station opened in September 1916 under the name Kamiishiwara, taken from the district, and was renamed Nishi-Chōfu in June 1959. Trains had therefore been running past this stretch of ground for two decades before the Maki house arrived, which helps explain why a family with a Shirokane address chose it.
The neighbourhood repays a walk even without access to the house. The old Kōshū Kaidō, the Edo-period highway to Kōfu, runs parallel to the railway a short distance south, and Saikō-ji temple in Kamiishiwara 1-chōme stands on it; the temple's Niō gate, its temple bell and a set of thirty-four wooden Kannon figures are all Chōfu City designated cultural properties. A few kilometres north, Jindai-ji shelters a small gilt bronze Buddha of the Hakuhō period, seated with legs pendant, which was raised from Important Cultural Property to National Treasure in 2017 and is the single most significant object in the city.
Chōfu holds eleven registered structures in all. The Arai family residence at Irima-chō, the former Kikuchi house now serving Shirayuri University, and the postwar home of the writer Mushanokōji Saneatsu are the others; the Mushanokōji house, unlike the Maki buildings, is open to visitors through the adjoining memorial museum and park. For anyone assembling a day around Chōfu's modern architecture, that is the one to build the itinerary on.
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Q&A
- Can the Maki Family Western-Style Residence be visited or photographed?
- No. It is a privately owned, occupied house with no published opening hours, admission or tour programme, and the interior cannot be seen. The exterior is visible from the public road, but visitors should remain on the road, keep off the grounds and avoid photographing residents.
- Where is the Maki Family Western-Style Residence and how do I reach it?
- The address is 2-48-21 Kamiishiwara, Chōfu City, Tokyo. Nishi-Chōfu Station on the Keiō Line is about a six-minute walk from the south exit, and the train from Shinjuku takes around twenty-three minutes.
- Is the Maki Family Western-Style Residence a National Treasure or an Important Cultural Property?
- Neither. It is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, a separate and lighter category introduced in 1996 for buildings protected by a notification system rather than a permit system. National Treasure and Important Cultural Property status involve stricter controls and a different selection process.
- Who built the Maki Family Western-Style Residence, and why was it moved to Chōfu?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs records it as the Shirokane residence of Maki Nagayoshi, a vice admiral and baron, built around 1910. It was relocated to Chōfu in 1937. The official record names no architect and gives no reason for the move.
- How is the Maki Family Western-Style Residence related to the Japanese wing on the same site?
- They are two halves of one household. The single-storey Japanese wing stands to the east, faces south, and is linked to this building by a covered corridor. Both were moved from Shirokane together in 1937 and registered on the same day in 2000.
Basic Information
| Name | Maki Family Western-Style Residence (真木家住宅洋館, Maki-ke Jūtaku Yōkan) |
|---|---|
| Location | 2-48-21 Kamiishiwara, Chōfu City, Tokyo |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure); registration number 13-0085; criterion "a model of design" |
| Year Designated | Registered 28 April 2000; gazetted 25 May 2000 (24th registration round) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Two storeys, timber frame, tiled roof, building area 151 m² |
| Owner | Privately owned; the owner field in the national database is left blank |
| Public Access | Not open to the public; exterior visible from the public road only |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Maki Family Residence Western-Style Building
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00001660
- Cultural Heritage Online: Maki Family Residence Western-Style Building
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/186390
- Chōfu City: List of Designated and Registered Cultural Properties in the City
- https://www.city.chofu.lg.jp/100200/p073019.html
- Chōfu City: List of Designated and Registered Cultural Properties (PDF)
- https://www.city.chofu.lg.jp/documents/2369/bunnkazai08.pdf
- Agency for Cultural Affairs: Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (Structures)
- https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkazai/shokai/yukei_kenzobutsu/toroku_yukei.html
Last verified: 2026.08.22