Ueminami Family Residence Main House

About the Ueminami Family Residence Main House

The Ueminami Family Residence Main House (上南家住宅主屋, Ueminami-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a single-story wooden farmhouse built in the mid-Edo period in Tani, Kimino Town, Wakayama Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2019.

The house stands in the middle of the Ueminami estate with its front facing east, and covers a building area of 110 square meters under an Irimoya-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles. The Wakayama Prefectural Board of Education singles out how low it sits: the walls are short and the eaves are brought far down, so the whole building sits low to the ground.

The entrance is on the south side and opens into a Doma, the earth-floored work area. North of it the rooms run in two rows, two at the front (east) and three behind. The two front rooms form a Tsuzukima suite of Zashiki tatami rooms, fronted by an Engawa veranda, and heavy Udeki brackets carry the deep eaves out over it.

According to the prefecture, silkworms were raised inside the Ueminami Main House at one time.

Why the Ueminami Family Residence Main House was registered

The Ueminami Main House was registered as a model of design, the only one of the four Ueminami buildings registered under that criterion. The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls it a rare farmhouse that keeps older forms, above all around its formal rooms, citing an alcove of the oshiita type and a ceiling laid in the tokozashi manner.

No document records when the Ueminami Family Residence Main House was built. The prefectural board dates it to the early 18th century from several old features: adze marks left on the Sashigamoi beams, posts of chestnut, and low lintel heights. The national database places it in the mid-Edo period, between 1661 and 1751.

The roof was originally Kayabuki thatch. In the late Meiji period the Roof frame roof frame was heavily rebuilt and the house was re-covered in tile, and the national database lists that work as a late Meiji alteration. The formal rooms kept their old forms while the roof took on a new shape.

What to look for in the Ueminami Main House

Start with the ten-mat zashiki at the formal end of the front row. On its end wall an Oshiita-type Tokonoma alcove stands beside the family Buddhist altar. The oshiita is regarded as an early form of the tokonoma, and it looks noticeably different from the raised alcoves of later reception rooms.

Then look up. The battens of the Saobuchi-tenjō ceiling in this room run straight toward the alcove, an arrangement called tokozashi. Later builders came to avoid it, and the prefectural board counts it among the house's old features.

Moving between rooms, you notice how low the lintels are. The sashigamoi beams still show the scoop marks of a chona adze, and the posts are chestnut. These are the very details the prefecture used to date the Ueminami Family Residence Main House, and standing in front of them makes clear what the word "old-style" in the official description refers to.

Outside, take in the veranda along the front and the deep eaves resting on their thick brackets.

Visiting the Ueminami Family Residence Main House

The Ueminami Family Residence Main House is privately owned, and the Ueminami estate now operates as a guesthouse that takes one party at a time. Expect to see the zashiki rooms and the doma 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.