Ueminami Family Residence Hiya (Detached Room)

About the Ueminami Family Residence Hiya

The Ueminami Family Residence Hiya (上南家住宅ヒヤ, Ueminami-ke Jūtaku Hiya) is a single-story wooden detached reception room built around 1957 in Tani, Kimino Town, Wakayama Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2019.

The Hiya stands at the northern corner of the Ueminami estate and covers a building area of 57 square meters. Its ridge runs east to west under an Irimoya-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles, and the entrance is at the southwest corner. Inside, an eight-mat room and a six-mat room sit side by side from east to west as a Tsuzukima suite, and an Engawa veranda wraps around the east and south sides.

No document gives its construction date, but the Ueminami Family Residence Hiya is said to have been built at the same time as the neighboring Konashiya barn, whose ridgepole went up on March 5, 1957, according to the ceremonial heigushi wand from its ridge-raising.

Why the Ueminami Family Residence Hiya was registered

The Ueminami Hiya was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to careful workmanship using plenty of fine Japanese cypress, and finds the period's taste expressed in a ceiling of black-painted battens set in close groups and in the latticework of the built-in writing alcove.

Its position counts too. The Hiya faces the formal end of the main house, the north end where the rooms are, and the agency credits it with tightening the layout of the whole estate.

The Wakayama Prefectural Board of Education describes the Ueminami Family Residence Hiya as modern Japanese-style architecture built with good Hinoki cypress throughout, and reads a distinctly postwar character in its ceiling design. Next to an Edo-period main house and gate, it gives the estate a postwar reception room.

What to look for in the Ueminami Hiya

The principal room is the eight-mat Zashiki on the east side. A Tokonoma alcove and Tokowaki shelving area occupy the north wall, and a Tsukeshoin built-in writing alcove projects on the east. The Kumiko latticework of the tsukeshoin's paper screens is one of the details the Agency for Cultural Affairs names.

The ceiling is a Saobuchi-tenjō batten ceiling, but the battens are not evenly spaced. They are painted black and set close together in groups, a style called fukiyose, so dark lines run across the ceiling boards in sets. The prefecture sees this black-edged fukiyose ceiling as typical of postwar houses.

The prefectural board also notes that the Ueminami Hiya was arranged so the view to the east could be enjoyed from the zashiki. The veranda runs along the east and south, the writing alcove sits on the east wall, and since the estate looks out to the east, the main room's east side faces straight toward the scenery.

Visiting the Ueminami Family Residence Hiya

The Ueminami Family Residence Hiya is privately owned, and the Ueminami estate now operates as a guesthouse that takes one party at a time. Expect to see the Hiya's zashiki only as an overnight guest; we found no arrangement for day visits.

No photography policy is published, so ask the hosts during your stay. Directions to the estate and details of staying there are on the Ueminami Family Residence page.