Ota Family Residence Main House

A Landowner's House of 1897

The Ota Family Residence Main House (太田家住宅主屋) is the main house of a large modern Japanese-style residence of 1897 in Tomieda, Yazu Town, Tottori Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on June 28, 2017 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a timber house of 2 storeys with a single-storey section, roofed in tile, with a building area of 231 square metres; registration number 31-0226.

It was home to the Ota family, who supplied three generations of village heads and opened the local post office on their own grounds in the Taisho era (Tottori Prefecture).

An Earth-Floored Entrance and Six Rooms

The Ota Family Residence Main House has its entrance, with an earth-floored Doma, at the southeast corner, and the raised floor is laid out as two rows of three rooms (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Tottori Prefecture describes the doma on the east side and six rooms on the west. The stair to the front rooms upstairs rises from within the doma.

On the garden side at the back, an inner veranda (Uchien) runs along the rooms in a staggered line (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The room where the heads of the family did business was called the mise, the shop; it now serves as the front desk of the inn (Ota-tei; Tottori Prefecture). The prefecture notes that its front sliding door is a single panel of lacquered zelkova.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency singles out the quality of the work, with choice timber used especially around the reception rooms and the woodwork finished in lacquer, and calls the house a fine example of a large modern Japanese-style residence; it was registered as a model of design. Prefectural and family sources describe the finish as fuki-urushi, lacquer rubbed into the grain.

The Yazu Town Tourism Association describes it as a typical modern house of a wealthy farming family in the Inaba region.

What to Look For

The finest fittings are in the eight-mat inner room. According to the inn, the staggered shelves are three-tiered and lacquered, the pulls on the cupboard above are shaped like plovers, and the paper screens of the built-in desk alcove (Tsukeshoin) use a diamond motif.

A pierced transom (Ranma) shows deer, maple leaves, a torii gate and a Kasuga-style stone lantern, motifs that call to mind Kasuga Taisha in Nara (Ota-tei). Look, too, at the deep sheen of the lacquered pillars, lintels and sliding doors.

Visiting

The main house is the heart of the inn now known as Kominka Ōtatei: the old business room is the check-in desk and the family sitting room is where guests take breakfast (Tottori Prefecture). Only overnight guests and renters of the rooms go inside.

No official guidance on photography was found.