Kada Family Residence

What Is the Kada Family Residence?

The Kada Family Residence (加田家住宅, Kada-ke Jūtaku) is an early Showa-period Japanese house and garden compound in Yabu-no-cho, Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture, whose main house was framed in 1929 and whose nine structures, including a tea house, a storehouse and a household shrine, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan in 2007.

The compound sits in a residential district south of the old castle town, roughly 300 meters southeast of the keep of Wakayama Castle. On a nearly rectangular lot that faces west, the Kada Family Residence keeps its gate and street wall, its main house and garden, a tea house with its own garden path, and a small shrine with a stone torii. The Agency for Cultural Affairs writes the district name as 薮ノ丁, while the prefectural and city heritage sites use the variant character 藪ノ丁; both are read Yabu-no-chō.

A House Built for a Mother's Seventieth Birthday

According to the Wakayama Prefectural Board of Education's heritage portal, the head of the family built the Kada Family Residence in the early Showa period to celebrate his mother's koki, the seventieth birthday. Wakayama City adds that the land had been a field of sanbokan citrus before the house went up.

Construction came in two stages. In 1929 the master carpenter Taniguchi Kamesaburō, assisted by Oka Tōjirō, raised the main house. Two years later, two sukiya carpenters from Kyoto, Hirai Gisaburō and Fuefuki Kaichirō, finished the tea rooms known as Furōan and Gyōgetsutei. A ridge tag (munafuda) found in the building confirms Hirai as the builder of the tea house, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes him as a craftsman connected with the Omotesenke school of tea.

The prefectural portal also remarks that every structure at the Kada Family Residence is of high quality and that the whole property has been kept in exceptionally good order. When it was registered in 2007, nearly eighty years after the main house was built, the layout of an early Showa residence survived almost unchanged.

The Nine Registered Structures of the Kada Family Residence

All nine structures of the Kada Family Residence became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on May 15, 2007, under the consecutive registration numbers 30-0103 to 30-0111. The tea house was registered as difficult to reproduce; the other eight were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the following dates and sizes.

• Main House: 1929. Wood, one storey, tiled roof, building area 266 m²
• Storehouse: 1931. Two-storey dozo storehouse, tiled roof, building area 20 m²
• Tea Room: 1931. Wood, one storey, tiled roof, building area 46 m²
• Koshikake Machiai (Waiting Bench): early Showa period. Wood, one storey, tiled roof, building area 6.7 m², with a privy
• Roji Gate: early Showa period. Wood, cedar-bark roof, opening 1.0 m wide
• Shrine: early Showa period. Wood, one storey, copper roof, building area 1.1 m²
• Torii: 1931. Stone, 2.2 m high and 1.7 m wide
• Front Gate: early Showa period. Wood, tiled roof, opening 2.2 m wide, with side doors
• Wall: early Showa period. Brick, tiled coping, total length 31 m

The registration lists published by the Wakayama Prefectural Board of Education and by Wakayama City give the date as September 15, 2007. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database, the prefectural heritage portal and the city's own entry all give May 15, and this site follows the Agency's database.

How the Kada Family Residence Is Laid Out

The Kada Family Residence faces the street on its west side. The Front Gate stands near the middle of that boundary, and the brick Wall runs out to either side of it. Its street face is clad in local blue-green schist, so from the road it reads as a long stretch of stone masonry.

Inside the gate, the Main House occupies the center of the lot, with the Storehouse in front of it toward the north. The reception rooms of the house step back one behind another along the garden. Beyond the garden, behind the house, lies the Tea Room. The Koshikake Machiai waits partway along the path to it, and the Roji Gate stands in front of Gyōgetsutei, so a tea guest is led from the house side through a small tea garden to the tea rooms.

In the northeast corner, a household Shrine sits on a stone platform behind a granite Torii. A residence, a fireproof store, a setting for the tea ceremony and a place of worship all share one lot at the Kada Family Residence. Each structure has its own page with construction details.

Visiting the Kada Family Residence

The Kada Family Residence is a private home. Neither the Agency for Cultural Affairs nor the prefecture or city lists any open days or visitor arrangements, so the house and garden are not open to the public. Visitors should stay outside the property. Only the Front Gate and Wall on the west side face the street, and that is where the residence can be seen from. Please take photographs with consideration for the people who live there.

Wakayama Castle is the easiest landmark. According to the castle's official site, buses bound for the castle (routes 0 and 25, among others) leave JR Wakayama Station and reach the Wakayama-jo-mae stop, formerly called Koen-mae, in about 10 minutes. From Nankai Wakayamashi Station the castle is about 15 minutes on foot. The Kada Family Residence is at 6 Yabu-no-cho, in the residential streets about 300 meters southeast of the castle keep.