Kubota Family Residence

About the Kubota Family Residence

The Kubota Family Residence (久保田家住宅, Kubota-ke Jūtaku) is an old family estate in Komatsubara, Yukawa-chō, Gobo City, Wakayama Prefecture, whose main house of 1808, new reception wing, nagayamon gate and wall were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on June 24, 2021.

Komatsubara was a post town on the Kumano Kaidō, the old pilgrimage road that ran down the coast of the Kii Peninsula to the Kumano shrines. The Kubota estate takes up a large plot among the houses that still line the road.

According to Gobo City, the house was a shin'ya, a branch of the Kubota family that ran the Komatsubara Honjin, the official inn for travelling lords. The branch itself served as the waki-honjin, the secondary inn used when the main one was full. The Wakayama Prefectural Board of Education adds that the family also served as village headmen (Shōya). The detached guest wing that was used as the secondary inn no longer survives.

The main house can be dated because its building record, a fushin-chō account book, has been kept. Gobo City made the book a city-designated cultural property on May 12, 1970, and describes it as a note of the costs incurred when the founder of the branch house built his new home.

The four registered structures

The national Council for Cultural Affairs recommended the Kubota Family Residence for registration on March 19, 2021, and all four structures became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in the 99th round of registrations on June 24, 2021, under consecutive numbers 30-0308 to 30-0311. Each was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives these dates and sizes:

• Main House: 1808, extended in the late Meiji period; 1-story wooden building, tiled roof, building area 193 square meters
• New Reception Wing: early Taishō period (1912 to 1918); 1-story wooden building, tiled roof, building area 136 square meters
• Nagayamon Gate: late Edo period (1830 to 1868); 1-story wooden building, tiled roof, building area 30 square meters
• Wall: early Taishō period (1912 to 1918); reinforced concrete, 27 m in total length

The estate pairs two Edo-period structures with two from the Taishō era. A late Edo house and gate set the frame, and in the 1910s the family added a wing for receiving guests and a Western-looking concrete wall. Gobo City sees in the group a glimpse of how a wealthy local household lived and entertained.

How the Kubota estate is laid out

The main house of the Kubota Family Residence stands in the middle of the plot, facing south. The new reception wing lies to its north, joined by a corridor, and sits right on the old road. The nagayamon gate, a gatehouse with rooms built into it, stands on the south edge of the plot, facing a lane that turns off the Kumano Kaidō. The wall closes off the west and south sides and, with the gate, forms the outer face of the estate.

Both the Agency for Cultural Affairs and the city tie every one of the four to the look of the road. The main house gives the post town its great roof, the reception wing shapes the roadside view, and the gate and wall make up the formal frontage. The registration treats the Kubota estate less as four separate buildings than as one roadside compound.

Visiting the Kubota Family Residence

The Kubota Family Residence is privately owned and is not normally open. We found no notice of the interior or grounds being opened on the Gobo City or Wakayama Prefecture websites. Please stay on the public road and do not enter the property.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs photographed both the nagayamon gate and the wall from the southwest of the plot, so the gate on the southern lane and the run of wall along the west and south sides are probably the parts most easily seen from outside.

The nearest station is JR Gobo on the Kisei Main Line (Kinokuni Line). The Kubota Family Residence lies about 500 m southeast of the station in a straight line by map coordinates. The small Kishu Railway also starts from Gobo Station.