A Storehouse Dated by Ink
Tomita-ke Jutaku Dozo (冨田家住宅土蔵, also written Tomita-ke Jūtaku Dozō), the storehouse range behind the main house of the Tomita residence at Motojuku in Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture, was built in 1876 and registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 3 April 2020.
Its date comes from an ink inscription written on the structure itself, the kind of note a carpenter leaves on a hidden member and nobody expects to be read again. That single line places the building in the ninth year of Meiji, and the timing carries more weight than it first appears.
The Tomita had spent roughly a century and a half as deputies of the Motojuku jin'ya, the local office of a hatamoto landholder, before the Restoration abolished the arrangement entirely. In 1870 they filed a petition to return to farming. Six years later they put up a substantial storehouse. A household that had just lost its office and its stipend was investing in storage capacity, which says something plain about where the family expected its income to come from next: from land, harvests and goods rather than from administration. The medical practice that would define the family in the twentieth century did not open until 1903.
The main house in front, known as Mokunansha, dates from 1827 and was registered on the same day. The two buildings were assessed as parts of a single surviving compound, and the storehouse is credited in the registration with forming one corner of that yashiki-gamae, the walled house-and-grounds arrangement of a household of standing.
Two Storehouses, Two Jobs
What reads from a distance as one long building is two, joined end to end. The southern half is the kazai-gura, the store for household possessions, and the northern half is the kome-gura, the rice store. Registered building area for the pair is about 43 square metres, and the structure is timber, two storeys in part and single storey in part, under tile.
Both halves carry gabled roofs in sangawara pantiles, and both are ringed by a hachimaki, literally a headband, the raised plaster band that runs around the wall just under the eaves.
The doorways face different ways. The household store opens east, toward the main house; the rice store opens north. Each has a geya, a small lean-to roof, set over the ground in front of its door, so that grain and goods could be moved in and out without standing in the rain. That is a working detail rather than a decorative one, and it tells you the building was used constantly rather than sealed and forgotten.
The wall treatment is worth looking at closely. Storehouses of this type are usually thought of as white plaster boxes, but here the lower walls are clad in shitami-ita, horizontal weatherboarding, painted black. Boarding of this kind is a common regional answer to driving rain, which erodes exposed earthen plaster over time. Only the upper storey of the household store is left in white plaster. The result is a two-tone elevation, dark below and pale above, that reads very differently from the all-white storehouses of the Kansai merchant towns.
Registration was granted under the criterion of contribution to the historic character of the landscape. The judgement is about the ensemble as much as the object: a deputy's main house, its storehouses and the site of the jin'ya it served, still standing in relation to one another on a village street.
Papers, Pastry and What You Can Actually See
By the twenty-first century the compound had been empty for something like fifty years. Water had come through the roofs, floors and walls had gone soft, and animals were using the buildings. Restoration of the main house and the storehouse was completed in 2018, carried out at the owning family's initiative with advice from an association specialising in the repair of old houses.
The storehouse now serves two purposes. Part of it is a confectionery workshop, which is closed to visitors. The rest is a display room holding old documents and household implements, and this is the part that makes a visit worthwhile. The papers on show come from the family's own keeping, accumulated across the generations that ran the jin'ya, and they let you see the administrative texture of a small Mikawa district in a way the architecture alone cannot.
Practical points. The display room is attached to the restaurant now occupying the main house, Ristorante Yughino Yugo, which opened in May 2019, and access is arranged through it. There is no ticket office and no fixed opening hours independent of the restaurant, so telephoning ahead is sensible rather than optional. The restaurant serves lunch from noon and dinner from 5:30 p.m. and closes on Wednesdays, with occasional extra closures. Photography inside should be cleared with staff.
Getting there is straightforward. Motojuku Station on the Meitetsu Nagoya Main Line is about a five minute walk, and limited express trains reach it from Higashi Okazaki in roughly ten minutes. The compound sits one lane south of National Route 1, on the course of the old Tokaido. The storehouse stands behind the main house and is best appreciated once you are on the site rather than from the road. Okazaki City has designated the compound a building forming historic scenery under its landscape ordinance, and Hozo-ji, associated with the childhood of Tokugawa Ieyasu, lies a short walk east if you want to make a longer visit of it.
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Q&A
- Can I visit Tomita-ke Jutaku Dozo?
- Partly. The storehouse contains a display room of old documents and implements that is open to visitors, while the confectionery workshop occupying the other part is not. Access is arranged through Ristorante Yughino Yugo in the main house, so telephone in advance. Wednesday is the usual closing day.
- How is Tomita-ke Jutaku Dozo dated to 1876?
- An ink inscription on the building itself gives the ninth year of Meiji, that is 1876, which establishes it as a Meiji-period structure rather than an Edo one. This distinguishes it from the main house in front, Mokunansha, which was built in 1827 and carries its date on the ridge tablet.
- What is inside Tomita-ke Jutaku Dozo?
- The southern half was the store for household possessions and the northern half the rice store. Today one portion functions as a confectionery workshop and the other as a display room for old documents and household implements from the family's own holdings, including material relating to their long service as jin'ya deputies.
- Why is Tomita-ke Jutaku Dozo not a white plastered storehouse?
- Its lower walls are clad in black-painted horizontal weatherboarding, a practical shield for earthen plaster in a rainy region, with white plaster left exposed only on the upper storey of the household store. A raised plaster band runs beneath the eaves on both halves.
- Where exactly does Tomita-ke Jutaku Dozo stand in relation to the main house?
- It stands behind Mokunansha, toward the rear of the compound, and the two were registered together on 3 April 2020 as surviving elements of a single deputy's residence. Reaching Motojuku Station on the Meitetsu Nagoya Main Line and walking about five minutes brings you to the site.
Basic Information
| Name | Tomita-ke Jutaku Dozo (冨田家住宅土蔵) |
|---|---|
| Location | 23 Minaminaka-cho, Motojuku-cho, Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture |
| Designation | National Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration no. 23-0547 |
| Year Designated | 3 April 2020 |
| Quantity | 1 building (household store and rice store joined) |
| Dimensions | Timber, two storeys in part and single storey in part, tiled roof; building area approx. 43 m² |
| Owner | Private |
| Public Access | Document display room open to visitors; confectionery workshop closed. Access arranged through the restaurant in the main house. Advance telephone contact advised. |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Tomita-ke Jutaku Dozo
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00013258
- Okazaki City: Registered Structures, Tomita Family Residence Mokunansha and Storehouse
- https://www.city.okazaki.lg.jp/bunka/torikumi_bunka/1004568/1004592/1004595/1004621.html
- Bunkazai Navi Aichi, Aichi Prefecture: Tomita-ke Jutaku Dozo
- https://jmapps.ne.jp/aichi_bunkazai/det.html?data_id=2359
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Tomita-ke Jutaku Mokunansha
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00013257
- Ristorante Yughino Yugo, official site
- https://yughino.com/
Last verified: 2026.08.06