Saiya Sake Brewery Residence and Store

The face the brewery turns to the street

Saiya Sake Brewery Residence and Store (斎彌酒造店住宅・店舗) is a two-storey wooden building of about 1902 in the Ishiwaki district of Yurihonjo City, Akita Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 1998.

The shop half pushes a deep eave out over the pavement. Seen from that angle alone it reads as a large Machiya, the merchant house type found across Japan. Raise your eyes and the reading changes. The upper storey carries Western detailing, grafted onto a frame that is otherwise entirely Japanese, and the join between the two is the sort of compromise a provincial Japanese town was making around the turn of the twentieth century.

East of the shop the residence continues, wrapped around a garden. Its exterior stays Japanese throughout, so the building presents one character to the road and another to the household. The floor area is 366 square metres, the roof tiled with copper sheeting over part of it.

Saitō Yatarō founded the brewery in October 1902, drawn to Ishiwaki by its spring water. The company name Saiya takes the second character of his given name. City records note that he later served as mayor of Honjō town and bought the site of the former Honjō castle with his own money to give to the town. The firm writes itself today with the older character form, 齋彌酒造店.

One of eleven, and one of two

Saiya Sake Brewery Residence and Store was entered on the national register on 2 September 1998 under registration number 05-0016. Ten further structures on the same plot, the storehouses, the office and the gate among them, were registered on the same date, eleven in all.

The criterion cited for this building is that it would be difficult to reproduce. Only one other structure here, the document storehouse, was registered on that ground. The remaining nine came in under a different clause, for contributing to the historic character of the landscape, and the split in criteria marks a real difference in what the buildings are.

Ishiwaki grew up as the port of the Kameda domain, handling river traffic on the Koyoshi River. Factories arrived through the 1900s, and brewers gathered around the springs at the foot of Mount Shinzan. A 1924 town business directory records five of them standing along a single road, half the brewing trade of the town. Saiya Sake Brewery Residence and Store is the piece of that brewing street that still addresses the road directly.

Reading the shopfront

Start with the eave. A deep overhang like this is standard in snow country, where it shelters the entrance and the customers under it, but here the entrance itself is capped with a curved gable in the karahafu manner. Set against the plain samurai-style gate a few metres away, it is unmistakably the welcoming side of the compound.

Move up to the second floor and the window treatment no longer matches the storey below. The Western element is partial. Nobody tried to make the whole elevation look European, so the seam between the two idioms sits inside a single facade where you can see it.

Walk east and the residence takes over. Because it is arranged around a garden, the street gives away very little of it. That depth is the clearest sign that Saiya Sake Brewery Residence and Store was never only a shop but the house of a brewing family as well.

Visiting

Saiya Sake Brewery Residence and Store belongs to a working sake company and the interior is not open. Brewery tours run by Saiya Shuzōten are suspended at present, so the building is seen from the road. The grounds are private property, and entering or photographing inside them requires the company's permission. Photographs taken from the public road are unproblematic.

Directly opposite stands Hakkōkōji Taya, the shop and cafe the brewery runs itself. It opens from 10:00 to 17:00 and closes on Thursdays and Sundays. Its gallery, Yuki no Bosha club, shows video of the brewery interior to visitors who apply in advance. Looking at the exterior and then crossing the road makes an easy sequence.

The nearest station is Ugo-Honjō on the JR Uetsu Main Line. Cross the Koyoshi River and walk north about 1.5 kilometres, roughly 20 minutes. The city loop bus stops at Okeyachō, a few minutes away on foot. Opening times and access arrangements change, so a call to Saiya Shuzōten on 0184-22-0536 before travelling is worthwhile.