Kiwata Family Residence Main House

What Is the Kiwata Family Residence Main House?

The Kiwata Family Residence Main House (木綿家住宅主屋, Kiwata-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is the principal dwelling of the Kiwata estate in Horidomehigashi, Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture; built in 1940, it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 21 June 2013. It is a single-storey timber house with a tiled roof and 164 square meters in plan.

The Kiwata Family Residence Main House faces south across its town lot under a hip-and-gable Irimoya-zukuri roof laid with Sangawara-buki pantiles. The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles it out as a high-quality prewar house with a Western-style room, well designed in both its Japanese and Western parts.

A Western Parlor by the Front Door

The entrance to the Kiwata main house is at the east end of the building. Immediately west of it is the one room that breaks with the rest: a Western-style reception room, or parlor.

Here the roof changes shape and material. The parlor has its own gabled Kirizuma-zukuri roof, covered not in Japanese tiles but in Spanish tiles with their rolling, rounded profile, so that its outline looks softer against the broad hipped roof beside it. A pair of arched windows sits side by side in the wall.

Wakayama Prefecture also mentions stained glass in the parlor, and describes the Kiwata Family Residence Main House as a mostly Japanese exterior into which Western touches have been folded with a light hand.

Rather than building a separate Western wing, the family set a single Western room next to the front door of a Japanese house. The arrangement was common in city homes of the period, and here it tells you plainly where the household chose to display its modern taste: in the room where visitors were received.

Tatami Rooms on the Garden Side

The western half of the Kiwata Family Residence Main House is a row of tatami rooms, each opening south onto the garden, with a veranda (engawa) running around the outside.

The plan splits neatly east and west: entrance and parlor at one end, formal Japanese rooms for family and guests at the other. Behind the house, across a small courtyard, stands the annex.

The main house is Registration No. 30-0171, listed for its contribution to the historic landscape.

Visiting

The Kiwata Family Residence Main House is privately owned and its interior is not open to the public. No regular opening of the parlor or the tatami rooms could be found.

Because the Kiwata main house stands behind a gate on the street, only part of it can be seen from outside. Photographs in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database show the Spanish-tiled parlor roof and the arched windows. On site, please stay off the private property.