Tanaka Family Residence (Jinba, Yamagata)

A Farmstead Behind a Long Roadside Wall

The Tanaka Family Residence (田中家住宅, Tanaka-ke Jūtaku) is a farming household's compound in Jinba, Yamagata City, Yamagata Prefecture, whose five structures, including a tool storehouse built in 1876, an early Meiji-period main house and a gate and wall of around 1934, were listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 23, 2008.

The property occupies the north side of a street. A gate and a long wall front the road, and behind them the thatched main house faces south. The Agency for Cultural Affairs presents that house as a dignified example of modern farmhouse architecture, and in its note on the gate and wall it says the frontage helps make up a traditional streetscape along an old highway.

The five listed structures are the main house, a parlor storehouse, a pickle storehouse, a tool storehouse, and the gate with its wall. A storehouse fitted out as a formal reception room, a small store for pickles beside the kitchen, and a shed for tools and household goods cluster around the house, while the gate and wall draw the line between family and street. Seen together, the Tanaka Family Residence shows how a farming family in the Yamagata Basin fitted living, work and storage onto one plot.

Reading the Dates

Lined up by the dates in the national database, the buildings were put in place over a little more than half a century, between the first half of the Meiji era and the start of the Showa era.

• Main house: early Meiji period, renovated in 1972 (Showa 47)
• Parlor storehouse: early Meiji period
• Pickle storehouse: early Meiji period, renovated in 1955 (Showa 30)
• Tool storehouse: 1876 (Meiji 9)
• Gate and wall: around 1934 (Showa 9)

Only the tool storehouse carries a firm year; the other three buildings are recorded simply as early Meiji. The likely sequence is a house and three storehouses in place by the middle of the Meiji era, with the street frontage rebuilt early in the Showa era. The main house still keeps its kayabuki thatch, now sealed under a skin of iron sheeting.

Look at the roof framing too. The Agency notes that the parlor storehouse is roofed with an unusual structure of straight timbers, and that the tool storehouse shares the same framing, a hint that the two were planned by the same hands or at least to the same idea.

How the Buildings Are Arranged

The Tanaka Family Residence reads as a gate and wall on the street, a large house behind them, two storehouses joined to its back, and a separate storehouse off to one side. Based on the Agency's notes, it fits together like this.

On the street: gate and wall

The gate, an udekimon whose eaves rest on projecting bracket arms, stands directly in front of the main house and is 4.3 metres wide. From the sodobei wing walls on either side, the wall runs east and west along the street and continues inside the grounds as a garden wall, 68 metres in all.

Front of the plot: main house

The main house sits toward the front of the plot, facing south. With a building area of 201 square metres it is far larger than anything else on the property.

Behind the house: parlor and pickle storehouses

The parlor storehouse is joined to the north side of the house's nando storeroom through a kuramae antechamber. The pickle storehouse attaches to the west end of the north wall, with its door opening from the house on the south gable. Both are part of one continuous block with the house.

To the southeast: tool storehouse

The tool storehouse alone stands apart, southeast of the main house beside a channel that runs along the road. Its door sits under a small eave at the centre of the west wall.

Household stores were kept within reach of the living rooms, while the tools were housed nearer the road. It is fair to read the layout as one that kept indoor routines and outdoor farm work on separate paths.

What Was Registered

All five were registered on October 23, 2008 in the 61st round of national registrations, with official notice published on November 10, under the consecutive numbers 06-0106 to 06-0110. The main house and parlor storehouse were registered as models of design; the pickle storehouse, tool storehouse and gate and wall for contributing to the historic landscape.

• Main house (06-0106): wooden, single storey with a partial 2nd floor, thatched roof temporarily covered in iron sheeting, building area 201 square metres
• Parlor storehouse (06-0107): earthen storehouse construction, 2 storeys, iron-sheet roof, building area 53 square metres
• Pickle storehouse (06-0108): earthen storehouse construction, single storey, iron-sheet roof, building area 10 square metres
• Tool storehouse (06-0109): earthen storehouse construction, single storey, iron-sheet roof, building area 21 square metres
• Gate and wall (06-0110): wooden gate with a copper roof, 4.3 metres wide; wooden wall roofed in iron sheet and copper, 68 metres long

The split in criteria is telling. Two buildings were valued for the quality of their design, and three for the way they hold the old roadside scene together: the heart of the farmstead on one side, the buildings that frame it on the other.

Visiting and Getting There

The Tanaka Family Residence is privately owned, and as of October 2026 we found no announcement of public openings or tours. The grounds and interiors are closed. The gate and wall face the street, but please stay off the property and keep any stop brief out of respect for the people who live here.

Each building's page in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database includes a set of photographs, and they are the best way to see the compound before, or instead of, a visit.

The compound is at 1-22 Jinba, Yamagata City (the registered address also takes in neighbouring lots), about 2.3 kilometres in a straight line west-northwest of JR Kita-Yamagata Station. That distance is an estimate taken from map positions; there is no official access guide.

About the Name

The name is read Tanaka-ke Jūtaku, "the Tanaka family house". Registered properties with the same name exist in Osaka, Mie and Hyogo prefectures, among others, so this site adds "Jinba, Yamagata" to tell this one apart. In the national database the five structures are listed one by one, each under the house name followed by the building name, such as 田中家住宅主屋 (main house) and 田中家住宅座敷蔵 (parlor storehouse).