Former Nakasuji Family Residence (Negi, Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture)

What the Former Nakasuji Family Residence Is

The Former Nakasuji Family Residence (旧中筋家住宅, Kyū-Nakasuji-ke Jūtaku) is the estate of the Nakasuji family, who served as ōjōya, or district headmen, for the Wasa group of villages during the Edo period, in Negi, Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture; its six buildings, led by a main house built in 1852 and including the front gate, long storehouse, north storehouse, inner storehouse and Onarimon gate, were designated an Important Cultural Property on 5 February 1974. The Agency for Cultural Affairs lists it as Former Nakasuji Family Residence (Negi, Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture), writing the place name with the variant character 祢.

Wakayama City gives the plot as about 57 metres north to south and 40 metres east to west, some 2,200 square metres in all. An earthen wall runs around it, and a moat-like channel follows the east and south sides. The east side faces the old Kumano Kodo pilgrimage road. A stone bridge crosses the southern channel to the front gate, and beyond the gate the main house rises straight ahead. The long storehouse lines the west side, the north storehouse stands in the north-west corner with the inner storehouse nearby, and the Onarimon gate opens at the northern end. There are gardens to the south and north of the main house.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a large, well-built farmhouse that preserves a headman's compound complete. Besides the six designated buildings, the grounds keep a miso room, a tea room and a rickshaw shed that are not designated.

Six Buildings and Why They Were Designated

The Main House

An inscription on a ridge-end tile dates the main house to 1852. Wakayama City gives its overall size as 22.8 metres across by 25 metres deep, and the national database records it in four parts. The earth-floored work area and kitchen measure 16.8 metres by 11.3 metres, with a hipped-and-gabled Irimoya-zukuri end to the east, a plain Kirizuma-zukuri gable to the west and Hongawarabuki tiling. The formal rooms under a Yosemune-zukuri hipped roof adjoin it to the east. To the north a linking block leads to the great hall, 12.8 metres by 8.1 metres. Part of the linking block rises to a third storey, where a viewing room sits.

The agency singles out exactly this: a separate block for the great hall, and a three-storey lookout room set in the link between them. Daily work in the kitchen and earth-floored area was kept apart from the rooms for receiving guests, and the link joined the two. The plan is a direct expression of how much entertaining a headman's household had to do. The roof mixes hongawarabuki with pantiles, and the pantiles are maru-sangawara, a rounded type particular to Wakayama.

Front Gate and Long Storehouse

The front gate is a Nagayamon, a gatehouse built into a long range of rooms, measuring 30.3 metres by 4.9 metres, with an irimoya roof in hongawarabuki. On a plot about 40 metres wide, that single building takes up three quarters of the southern side. The long storehouse, two storeys and 29.7 metres by 4.9 metres, has an irimoya roof at its south end and a gable at the north, also in hongawarabuki, and runs along the west side. Two buildings of almost the same length hold the south and west edges of the compound.

North Storehouse, Inner Storehouse and Onarimon Gate

The north and inner storehouses are both two-storey Dozo-zukuri earthen stores with gabled hongawarabuki roofs and a lean-to on the south side. The north storehouse measures 8.7 metres by 4.8 metres, the inner storehouse 7.2 metres by 3.3 metres, a size smaller. The Onarimon at the northern end is a single-bay Yakuimon gate in hongawarabuki. The name onarimon refers to a gate reserved for high-ranking visitors such as a domain lord, and it stands quite apart from the everyday front gate on the south.

The six buildings of the Former Nakasuji Family Residence were designated an Important Cultural Property in 1974. The national database dates all six to the late Edo period. The Wakayama Prefectural Board of Education notes that while the buildings are relatively late, the compound preserves its late Edo to early Meiji layout well and has high historical value as evidence of the authority and wealth of a leading farming family of jishi, rural gentry who were half farmers and half samurai.

What to Look For

The first place to climb to at the Former Nakasuji Family Residence is the Bōzanrō, the room on the third floor of the main house. Wakayama City explains that it is a 10-mat room named for its views of the mountains: Mount Takazumi to the east, and to the west the hills of the Iwase Senzuka burial mounds. The prefecture also calls the part-three-storey form unusual. Looking out over the Wasa plain from that height makes it easy to understand where a headman's household stood in the life of the district.

Do not miss the 20-mat great hall on the north side of the main house. Walking from the kitchen and the earth-floored work area, through the linking block and into the hall, you can feel the house change character. The karakami papers on the sliding doors were remade during the restoration to the original specification, some of them printed from newly carved woodblocks.

Outside, look at how the front gate and the long storehouse, each about 30 metres long, close off two sides of the compound, and follow the earthen wall and the channel along the Kumano Kodo on the east. Look up at the roofs, too, and you can pick out where hongawarabuki gives way to the rounded pantiles.

Restoration and Visiting

Wakayama City began restoring the Former Nakasuji Family Residence in February 2000 and completed the work in March 2010. The Wakayama Prefectural Cultural Properties Centre supervised design and works, and the tea room, miso room and rickshaw shed were repaired along with the six designated buildings. On the evidence of dismantling and excavation, the main house's smoke vent and cooking stoves, the board fence in front of it and the partitions in the long and north storehouses were reinstated, and some tatami were remade by hand to the traditional specification.

The interior is open on public open days. Opening days and admission are set out on the Nakasuji Family Residence page. The Bōzanrō has been open on every open day since March 2022. According to the city's notice, visitors go up four at a time for about 20 minutes, and the room is closed when wind and rain are too strong to open the storm shutters. Some areas of the buildings are closed or restricted, so follow the staff's directions. Wheelchair users can view the buildings from the garden and the earth-floored areas. Ask the staff on the day whether photography is allowed (all checked 26 September 2026).