Yamanouchi Family Residence Menservants' Quarters

About the Yamanouchi Family Residence Menservants' Quarters

The Yamanouchi Family Residence Menservants' Quarters (山内家住宅男衆部屋, Yamanouchi-ke Jūtaku Otokoshu-beya) is a single-storey staff lodging built around 1931 in Sakaemachi, Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on April 25, 2014. It stands on the east side of the Yamanouchi Family Residence, toward the north end, and housed the family's male servants.

It is a long, narrow row building, a nagaya, measuring 5 by 1 and a half bays (Ken) with a gabled roof of interlocking pantiles and a building area of 28 square metres. The Yamanouchi Family Residence Menservants' Quarters has a counterpart for women on the north side of the grounds, so male and female staff lived under separate roofs.

Why It Was Registered

The Yamanouchi Family Residence Menservants' Quarters was registered as No. 35-0089 under the criterion for structures that contribute to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to the row of windows on its outer wall, which it says gives the estate's east side its tidy appearance.

It is a servants' building that was still expected to look presentable to the street. It is also a concrete record of how resident staff were housed in a prosperous early Showa household, down to the size of each room.

What to Look For

The plan of the Yamanouchi Family Residence Menservants' Quarters is simple. An earth-floored entry, a Doma, opens in the middle of the west side. To its south are two rooms, one of 3 tatami mats and one of 4 and a half; to its north is a boarded-floor room.

Notice which way it faces. The entry opens west, into the grounds and toward the main house. Staff came and went inside the estate, and the street never saw a doorway.

The east side, facing outward, is all wall and windows: three of them, each with its own little hood. That outer wall forms the visible east edge of the property, and it is this face that the Agency singled out.

Visiting

The Yamanouchi Family Residence Menservants' Quarters is part of a private home and is not open inside (checked September 26, 2026).

What you can see from outside is the east wall with its three hooded windows. The entrance side faces into the grounds and is hidden. People live here, so don't bring a camera up close to the windows.