Yamamoto Family Residence Gate

The Garden Gate of a Merchant House

The Yamamoto Family Residence Gate (山本家住宅門, Yamamoto-ke Jūtaku Mon) is a small timber gate of around 1906 at the Yamamoto family estate in Sakai, Kainan City, Wakayama Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 2, 2007. It is just 4 shaku (1.2 meters) wide and comes with 3.6 meters of flanking wall.

According to the national database, the Yamamoto Family Residence Gate stands toward the east end of the main house frontage and faces west. It leads from the front of the family's living quarters into the garden of the reception wing. From the south end of its flanking wall, the blue stone wall runs east along the road.

Light Eaves and Rounded Tiles

It is an udegi-mon, a gate whose small roof rests on brackets projecting from two posts, with a gabled roof laid in maru-sangawara, a rounded pan tile said to be characteristic of Wakayama. The rafters are widely spaced, which keeps the eaves looking light.

The doors are each a single board, hung to open in pairs. The flanking wall is black plaster over a skirt of vertical boards, capped with the same rounded tiles. Black plaster, then blue stone: together they form one continuous enclosure in front of the main house.

Why It Was Registered

The Yamamoto Family Residence Gate was registered on October 2, 2007 (registration no. 30-0128) under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the nation.

The national database credits it with giving order to the estate's frontage. Small as it is, it stands between the two halves of the main house and marks the way from the everyday living quarters into the garden meant for guests. The gate, the stone wall and the reception wing all date from around 1906.

What to Look For

Look at the tiles. The national database describes maru-sangawara as characteristic of Wakayama, and the gate roof and the flanking wall share them, in step with the roofs of the main house.

The single-board doors show their grain without a seam. The meeting of three materials, black plaster, vertical boards and blue stone, happens only here, at the gate.

Seeing the Gate

The Yamamoto Family Residence Gate belongs to a private home, and visitors cannot walk through it. View the roof and flanking wall from the road side, where they meet the west end of the stone wall. Directions are on the Yamamoto Family Residence page.