Mase Family Residence (Sakuemon Yashiki) Main House

A Meiji Merchant House on the Morozaki Road

The Mase Family Residence (Sakuemon Yashiki) Main House (間瀬家住宅（作右衛門屋敷）主屋, also written Mase-ke Jūtaku Omoya) is a merchant house of about 1884 (Meiji 17) in the Kamezaki district of Handa City, Aichi Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 6, 2024.

Kamezaki is a port town on the eastern shore of the Chita Peninsula. Brewing and coastal shipping made it prosperous from the Edo period onward, and storehouses lined the Morozaki Kaidō, the road running down the peninsula toward Cape Morozaki. The Mase family traded here as shipping agents and timber merchants. Successive heads of the house took the name Sakuemon, which is why the property is known locally as Sakuemon Yashiki, the Sakuemon estate.

The Main House sits at the centre of the plot. It is a timber building of 2 storeys with a single-storey portion, roofed in Kirizuma-zukuri with Sangawara-buki pantiles, its ridge running east to west. The floor area is 194 square meters. On the west a reception wing joins it under a lower roof. The entrance is on the east, and beyond it seven rooms are laid out in 2 rows, with verandas along the north and south sides. The room in the southwest corner serves the household as its principal parlour.

A Sukiya-zukuri style parlour was added in 1932 (Shōwa 7), and the building was repaired in 2023 (Reiwa 5). The Agency for Cultural Affairs database records the date of the Mase Family Residence (Sakuemon Yashiki) Main House as around 1884, with the addition of 1932 and the repair of 2023 noted separately.

A storehouse stands to the west, joined to the Main House by a corridor. It was listed on the same day as a separate property and is covered in its own article.

Why It Was Listed: A Model of Design

Japan's registration system for buildings works from three criteria, and each listed structure is matched to one of them. The Mase Family Residence (Sakuemon Yashiki) Main House was registered under the first, which recognises a building as a model of design. The storehouse beside it was registered under a different criterion, for its contribution to the historic landscape, so the two structures were valued for different reasons on the same day.

What the criterion points to here is the treatment of the parlour, which borrows the manner of the tea house. The Ranma transom above the south veranda holds a musō-mado, a louvred window made from two boards of evenly spaced slats: slide one board and the openings close into what looks like a solid panel, slide it back and air passes through. The box that houses the storm shutters is faced with ajiro, thin strips of bamboo or wood woven on the diagonal, a material long favoured for tea room ceilings and walls. Outdoors it catches raking light and changes through the day.

The interest of the building lies in the pairing. The plan of seven rooms in 2 rows is the working plan of a merchant house, while the finishes belong to the world of the Chashitsu tea room. The street front was a place of business and the rear a Zashiki of some refinement, and the 1932 addition shows a later generation of the family pursuing the same taste further.

What to Look For

Start from the front garden and look southeast, the view the Agency for Cultural Affairs uses in its own photograph. The long gable roof runs level from east to west, then steps down at its western end where the reception wing joins. The composition of the Mase Family Residence (Sakuemon Yashiki) Main House can be read from outside before entering.

Inside, follow the rooms as they run westward from the east entrance. Two parallel rows of rooms is a common arrangement in houses that face a road and do business from it. Walking the south Engawa veranda brings the louvred transom overhead into view, and with the woven facing of the shutter box nearby, the light reaching the veranda is broken into fine bands.

The inner parlour is identified in the national database as the room where a chief abbot of Eiheiji was received. Eiheiji, in Fukui Prefecture, is one of the two head temples of the Sōtō school of Zen, and hosting its abbot indicates the standing the family held in the district.

Since the repair of 2023, the parlour has served as a venue for exhibitions and events. A display of potted plum trees, the Kamezaki Bonbai Exhibition, is held here each February, and tea is sometimes served in the inner parlour during exhibition periods, which lets visitors use the room much as it was meant to be used.

Visiting

The Mase Family Residence (Sakuemon Yashiki) Main House is privately owned and is not open at all times. It opens to the public during exhibitions and events as the annex of the neighbouring Tachikawa Art Museum (6-81 Kamezakicho, Handa City), where it is known as Sakuemon Yashiki. Opening hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with last admission at 4:30 p.m., and the museum and its annex close on Wednesdays.

Admission is set for each exhibition; 500 yen for adults and 200 yen for elementary and junior high school students is the usual rate, and a combined ticket with the Tachikawa Art Museum costs 800 yen. Outside exhibition periods, and for group visits, call the museum in advance on 0569-29-5897. A café operates inside the house on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, which is one way to see the interior between exhibitions.

Photography rules depend on what is on display, so ask at the reception desk rather than assuming.

Kamezaki Station on the JR Taketoyo Line is about a 10-minute walk away; the line branches from the Tōkaidō Main Line at Ōbu. By car it is about 16 minutes from the Agui interchange of the Chita Peninsula Road by way of Prefectural Route 46, and the museum has a car park.

The Tachikawa Art Museum shows the carving of the Tachikawa school, whose work appears on the festival floats of Kamezaki, and pairs naturally with a visit to the house. While at the Mase Family Residence (Sakuemon Yashiki) Main House, look also at the storehouse joined to it by a corridor: its plastered walls, carried up to the eaves and pierced by a single window, make a deliberate contrast with the lightness of the parlour.