Ueminami Family Residence Konashiya (Barn)

About the Ueminami Family Residence Konashiya

The Ueminami Family Residence Konashiya (上南家住宅コナシヤ, Ueminami-ke Jūtaku Konashiya) is a single-story wooden barn built in 1957 in Tani, Kimino Town, Wakayama Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2019.

The Konashiya stands between the main house and the Hiya, pressed right up against the north side of the main house. With a building area of 28 square meters, it is the smallest of the four registered Ueminami buildings. Its ridge runs east to west under an Irimoya-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles, and it is entered through the gable end, in the Tsumairi manner, by a wide doorway on the east side.

Inside, the eastern part is an earth-floored Doma, and only the far west end has a wooden floor. Coming in from the east, you cross the earth floor to reach the boarded section at the back.

Why the Ueminami Family Residence Konashiya was registered

The Ueminami Konashiya was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs sees it as preserving the traditional arrangement of a farm household in the mountains of the Kishi River basin.

Of the two Shōwa buildings on the estate, the Konashiya is the one that can be dated to the day. According to the Wakayama Prefectural Board of Education, the heigushi, a ceremonial wand set up at the ridge-raising, shows that its ridgepole went up on March 5, 1957. The neighboring Hiya is said to date from the same time, and its age is reckoned from the Konashiya.

The prefectural board notes that all four Ueminami buildings have kept their traditional exteriors and matter to the look of the hillside. Small as it is, the Ueminami Family Residence Konashiya carries the same hip-and-gable roof as the main house and the Hiya, and stands in line with them.

What to look for in the Ueminami Konashiya

The frame of the Ueminami Konashiya mixes two kinds of timber: new Hinoki cypress and old chestnut. Both the Agency for Cultural Affairs and the prefecture believe the chestnut was salvaged from an earlier building. So although the barn was new in 1957, it was framed partly with timber handed down from an older structure.

Chestnut posts also stand in the main house next door. The sources do not say which building the Konashiya's old timbers came from, but on this one estate chestnut posts hold up both an Edo-period house and a Shōwa barn.

From outside, three hip-and-gable roofs follow one another from south to north: the main house, the Konashiya and the Hiya. The smallest of them, tucked close against the main house, is the Ueminami Family Residence Konashiya.

Visiting the Ueminami Family Residence Konashiya

The Ueminami Family Residence Konashiya is privately owned, and the Ueminami estate now operates as a guesthouse that takes one party at a time. We found no notice that the inside of the Konashiya is open to visitors.

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.