The Naju Magistrate's Residence, or Naju Moksa-naea, was the actual private living quarters of the magistrate dispatched to govern Najumok during the Joseon period. Unlike the donghheon, the formal office where the magistrate handled official business, the naea was his private residential space. This particular building carries its own name, Geumhakheon, meaning "the house of one who wishes to live as loftily and purely as a crane, listening to the sound of a geomungo (a traditional zither) — a home imbued with a scholar's sense of integrity."
The building's exact construction date can be pinpointed through the ridge-beam inscription in the main house, which records that the cornerstone was laid on July 1, 1825 — the 25th year of King Sunjo's reign — and that the ridge beam was raised on July 20th of the same month. The building has a U-shaped floor plan with a covered veranda at the front, spans three bays across the front, and is topped with a hip-and-gable roof that forms a figure resembling the Chinese character for "eight" (八) when viewed from the side. Only the main house and gate house survive today. Naming even an official's private living quarters after the ideal of "a scholar's lofty integrity" — regardless of how closely actual daily life lived up to that ideal — reveals something about what Joseon's bureaucratic culture held up as its own aspiration.