Sakabe Family Residence

The Sakabe Family Residence and how the estate is laid out

The Sakabe Family Residence (坂部家住宅, Sakabe-ke Jūtaku) is a former landowner's estate in Fuchū, Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture, on the right (north) bank of the Kinokawa River, where a late-Edo main house moved to the site in 1862 and three later buildings are listed as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties.

The main house takes up roughly the middle of the plot. A covered corridor runs from its east side to the detached reception room, a small annex with a garden on both its south and north sides. The Inui Storehouse, a plastered fireproof storehouse, stands in the northwest corner, and the gate row house faces west from the southern part of the west side. That gate was the formal entrance to the household, with the main house set back behind it.

The four buildings span the late Edo period to the early Shōwa era. The gate row house is dated to the end of the Edo period (1830–1868), the storehouse to early Meiji (1868–1882) and the reception room to early Shōwa (1926–1945). The main house is older than any of them, but it was not built in Fuchū. Both Wakayama Prefecture and Wakayama City describe it as a farmhouse that originally stood in Minoshima, now part of Arida City, and was moved here in 1862.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls the main house a large farm building that stands out within the village, and says the storehouse, set on a corner plot, shapes the historic look of the farming district. At the Sakabe Family Residence it is the whole compound, with its gate, storehouse and annex around a big house, that forms part of the Fuchū landscape.

The four registered buildings of the Sakabe Family Residence

The main house was the first part of the Sakabe Family Residence to be listed, on March 2, 2006 (registration no. 30-0084). The detached reception room, the storehouse and the gate row house followed on March 26, 2015 (nos. 30-0202 to 30-0204). All four were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties under the same criterion, for contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

• Sakabe Family Residence Main House: late Edo (1751–1829), moved here in 1862. Single-storey timber building with a tiled roof, building area 220 m²
• Sakabe Family Residence Detached Reception Room: early Shōwa (1926–1945). Single-storey timber building with a tiled roof, building area 39 m²
• Sakabe Family Residence Inui Storehouse: early Meiji (1868–1882). Two-storey plastered storehouse with a tiled roof, building area 20 m²
• Sakabe Family Residence Gate Row House: late Edo (1830–1868), renovated in 2006. Single-storey timber building with a tiled roof, building area 86 m²

For nine years the main house was the only listed building. When the gate, the storehouse and the annex were added, the recognition widened from a single house to the layout of the estate as a whole.

Visiting the Sakabe Family Residence and getting there

The Sakabe Family Residence is a private home. Both the prefectural and city heritage pages give the owner simply as a private individual, and neither announces any public opening of the interiors or gardens. A visit means looking at the buildings from outside the property; please do not go through the gate.

From the street, the parts of the Sakabe Family Residence most easily seen are the gate row house, which faces west, and the Inui Storehouse on its northwest corner plot. The main house and the reception room sit inside the compound, so expect to see little more than their rooflines. Keep photography to the exteriors as seen from the road, and remember that people live here.

The estate is in the village of Fuchū (府中, read "Fuchū"), on the north side of the Kinokawa in eastern Wakayama City. The nearest station is Kii on the JR Hanwa Line, about 1.7 km in a straight line to the east-northeast of the house. Musota Station, also on the Hanwa Line, is about 2.1 km to the west. There is no visitor parking on record, so if you come by car, take care not to block the narrow village lanes.