Kawaguchi Family Residence Barn

About the Kawaguchi Family Residence Barn

The Kawaguchi Family Residence Barn (川口家住宅納屋, Kawaguchi-ke Jūtaku Naya) is a timber farm outbuilding standing beside the street east of the main house on the Kawaguchi estate in Nishiniunozu, Aridagawa Town, Wakayama Prefecture, built in the early Showa era (1926 to 1945) and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2018.

The Kawaguchi Family Residence Barn faces east onto the street, its ridge running north to south. The roof is hip-and-gable in form and laid with pantiles, and lean-to Geya extensions wrap the west and north sides. It covers 38 m²; Wakayama Prefecture gives its size as 6 ken by 2 ken, a ken being about 1.8 m.

The sources disagree on the number of floors. The national database lists it as two storeys and says the upper level was also used for work; the prefectural description calls it single-storey. This article follows the national database.

Where the Mikan Were Sorted

The Kawaguchi Family Residence Barn was where the family kept its farm tools and sorted the mikan harvest. For a household that combined teaching with citrus growing, this was the working end of the estate.

The national database describes the Kawaguchi Family Residence Barn as an outbuilding that no traditional mikan farm could do without. It was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property for its contribution to the historic landscape: its long frontage on the street is part of what makes this corner of Aridagawa still read as orchard country.

The barn has a door onto the street as well as one into the yard, which would have let tools and fruit go in and out directly from the road.

Plaster, Boarding and an Earth Floor

The walls of the Kawaguchi Family Residence Barn are Shinkabe, with the timber posts left visible, and finished in white Shikkui plaster. The lower part of each wall is faced with vertical boarding, so the white plaster sits above a timber base.

Inside is a single room with an earth floor, a Doma, except for 1 ken at the north end that is floored in timber. The open earth floor suited sorting and handling equipment; the boarded strip gave a dry place to keep things off the ground.

Seeing the Kawaguchi Family Residence Barn

The Kawaguchi Family Residence Barn is privately owned and has no public opening days. The estate is leased to a social welfare corporation for employment support, and we found no arrangement for seeing the interior.

Because the Kawaguchi Family Residence Barn fronts the street on the east side of the estate, its exterior can be seen from the road: look for the hip-and-gable roof and the boarding below the white plaster. North of the barn the earthen wall continues to the annex. Please stay on the road and photograph from there. Directions are on the Kawaguchi Family Residence page.