Inoue Family Residence (Former Iwata Family Residence) Main House

What Is the Inoue Family Residence (Former Iwata Family Residence) Main House?

The Inoue Family Residence (Former Iwata Family Residence) Main House (井上家住宅（旧岩田家住宅）主屋, Inoue-ke Jūtaku, Kyū Iwata-ke Jūtaku Omoya) is the farmhouse at the center of an estate in Nakamitani, Kinokawa City, Wakayama Prefecture; built around 1916, it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 7 August 2023.

It faces south under a hipped-and-gabled Irimoya-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles, with its entrance on the long side in the Hirairi manner. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as partly 2-storey; the structure field of its database reads 2-storey timber building, 181 square meters in building area. The house was altered in the later Shōwa period.

Why It Was Registered

The Main House was registered as number 30-0335 for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency sums it up as a modern Japanese-style farmhouse built of good timber and finished with a quiet, restrained hand.

In the Inoue Family Residence Main House, the rooms for daily life follow a standard four-room plan, while the careful work is saved for the zashiki, the formal room where guests were received. Wakayama Prefecture calls that room distinctive and of high quality.

Four Rooms in a Grid, and a Parlor Pushed West

The east end of the house is an earth-floored Doma. West of it, four rooms are laid out in a square grid, the arrangement known as Yomadori, which the Agency calls regular: the four rooms form a tidy block of roughly equal parts.

Beyond that block, a Zashiki projects further west, and this is the room to look for. Its display alcove, the Tokonoma, with a built-in writing bay or Tsukeshoin, is set on the west wall, while the Tokowaki beside it, fitted with staggered Chigaidana shelves, is placed on the north wall.

Alcove and shelves are usually set side by side on one wall, and the Agency picks out their separation as the room's defining feature. Wakayama Prefecture explains that it was done to keep the view to the garden open: with alcove and shelves split across two walls, the remaining sides of the room can face the garden.

Visiting

The Inoue Family Residence (Former Iwata Family Residence) Main House is privately owned and its interior is not open to visitors. The estate is also used as a Zen practice hall, but its booked zazen meetings are religious practice, not building tours.

The house stands in the middle of the plot behind the nagayamon gate, which blocks most of the view from the lane. The front elevation and the hipped-and-gabled roof can be seen in the full-front photograph on the Agency for Cultural Affairs database. On site, please do not enter the private grounds.