Nakasuji Family Residence

Two Estates of the Nakasuji Headmen of Wasa

The Nakasuji Family Residence (中筋家住宅, Nakasuji-ke Jūtaku) is a pair of family estates in the Wasa district of Negi, Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture: the senior house, known as the Former Nakasuji Family Residence (旧中筋家住宅), whose six buildings centred on a main house of 1852 were designated an Important Cultural Property on 5 February 1974, and a branch house whose five buildings were registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 11 December 1998.

Both stand in the same village, the branch less than 300 metres south of the senior house. The names are easy to confuse. The Agency for Cultural Affairs lists them separately: the senior estate carries the prefix kyū, "former", and the branch estate does not. The senior house is managed and opened to the public by Wakayama City; the branch house is still a private home.

According to Wakayama City's history pages, the family traces its origins to Buntei-bō, who is said to have fled to Wasa after Toyotomi Hideyoshi's attack on the Negoro temple complex in 1585. In 1687 the fourth head became Shōya of Negi village, and in 1750 the fifth head was made ōjōya, or district headman, of the Wasa group of villages, a post the family held for six generations until the first years of Meiji. An ōjōya ranked above the village headmen and oversaw a cluster of villages known as a kumi. The branch split from the senior line during the Ansei era (1854–1860), while the senior family was still in office.

Wasa lies in the east of the city on the south bank of the Kinokawa river. Mount Takazumi, 237 metres high, rises to the east, the river runs to the north, and between them lies good rice land. The Kumano Kodo pilgrimage route to the three great shrines of Kumano runs north to south through the district, and the senior estate's east side faces directly onto it.

The Senior House: Former Nakasuji Family Residence

The Former Nakasuji Family Residence is a headman's compound on a broad plot beside the Kumano Kodo: a front gatehouse (a nagayamon) on the south, the main house beyond it, storehouses along the west side and the Onarimon gate on the north. The Wakayama Prefectural Board of Education notes that an inscription on a ridge-end tile dates the main house to 1852, and that it has a 20-mat reception hall and, unusually, a section rising to three storeys. The main house was built by the eighth head of the family, and the compound reached its present form under the tenth.

Six buildings, the main house, front gate, long storehouse, north storehouse, inner storehouse and Onarimon gate, are Important Cultural Properties. The prefecture values the estate for preserving a late Edo to early Meiji household layout that shows the authority and wealth of a leading farming family. After the war it was kept up in private ownership; with Wakayama City as custodian it was restored over about ten years from 2000 and has been open to the public since August 2010.

The Branch House: Nakasuji Family Residence

The branch estate occupies a corner where a prefectural road, running from Wasa toward Kainan, meets a lane that turns off to the west. Following the Agency for Cultural Affairs descriptions, the Nagayamon gatehouse faces the prefectural road on the east side, with an attached store under a lower roof to its north and the utility building beyond that. Along the lane, which forms the north side of the plot, the detached parlor and east storehouse stands toward the east, with the west storehouse next to it. The main house lies inside the gate, roughly in the middle of the plot.

The outer buildings were designed to match. On the east side the gatehouse and its store share one wall finish, and the utility building follows the same design with its roof set just below the store's. On the north side, the west storehouse's boarded base continues the look of the detached parlor next door.

The main house is by far the largest, with a building area of 205 square metres. The detached parlor and east storehouse covers 62 square metres, the gatehouse 50 square metres, the west storehouse 30 square metres and the utility building 11 square metres. All five are single-storey timber buildings with tiled roofs. The main house and the utility building date from 1887 and the gatehouse from about the same time; the detached parlor and the west storehouse are from the Taishō era (1912–1926). The prefecture describes the group as rebuilt or newly built between the middle of the Meiji era and the Taishō era, so the core of the estate took shape some 30 years after the branch was founded, and the north range came later.

Designated and Registered

The six buildings of the senior house were designated Important Cultural Properties on 5 February 1974, under the designation system of the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties, as a record of how a late Edo district headman lived.

The five buildings of the branch house were registered on 11 December 1998, with the official notice following on the 25th of the same month. Their numbers run in sequence from 30-0021 for the main house to 30-0025 for the utility building, and on Wakayama City's list they are the third registered buildings in the city. The main house was registered as a structure that would not be easy to reproduce, the other four for their contribution to the historic landscape. The prefecture notes that the estate survives intact, has been kept in remarkably good condition, and contributes a great deal to the quiet rural village scene of Wasa.

One estate is valued as the seat of a late Edo headman, the other as a farming household laid out in the Meiji and Taishō eras, under two different systems. Being able to walk from one to the other and compare them is what makes this corner of Wasa worth the trip.

Visiting and Getting There

The Former Nakasuji Family Residence opens on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays from March to November, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with last entry at 4 p.m. Admission is 100 yen for adults and free for high school students and younger; groups of 20 people or more pay 80 yen each. Outside the open season or on weekdays, groups of 5 or more can visit by applying one month in advance. Holders of disability certificates and a companion enter free, and wheelchair users can view the buildings from the garden and the earth-floored areas. Some parts are closed or restricted, so follow the staff's directions (all checked 26 September 2026).

The branch Nakasuji Family Residence is privately owned. None of its five buildings is open inside and the grounds are closed; neither the prefectural nor the city heritage listings give any open days. The easiest views are of the gatehouse, store and utility building along the prefectural road on the east, and of the detached parlor and west storehouse along the lane on the north. The main house stands inside the gate, so expect to see little of it from the road. This is a home: please do not point a camera through the gate or at windows, and watch for traffic on the prefectural road.

The nearest station is Senda on the JR Wakayama Line. Wakayama City gives the walk from Senda Station to the Former Nakasuji Family Residence as about 20 minutes; the route along the Kumano Kodo from Hoshiya Station takes about 30 minutes. The branch house is less than 300 metres further south. Drivers can use a free car park about 300 metres south of the senior house, with room for 10 cars and 2 coaches. On an open day, tour the senior house first and then walk south to see the branch estate from the road.