Sasaki Family Residence

About the Sasaki Family Residence in Maego

The Sasaki Family Residence (佐々木家住宅, Sasaki-ke Jūtaku) in Maego, Yurihonjo City, Akita Prefecture, is the estate of a landowning merchant family whose main house, Yorokaku villa, document storehouse and brick urinal, built between 1900 and 1921, were listed together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on February 14, 2002.

The estate sits in the middle of Maego, the old center of the former town of Yuri, on the flat ground east of the Koyoshi River. Yurihonjo City's own materials also call it the Sasaki-tei, the Sasaki house.

For generations the Sasaki were the biggest landowners in the district. According to the city, the seventh head of the family, Santaro, also ran a rental business, and his son Shinkichiro, the eighth head, is said to have operated warehouses where others could store their rice. Farmland, trade and storage together made the name known across the region.

The family later turned to medicine. The ninth head, Takayoshi, opened a dental practice inside the main house, and his successor Takaaki carried it on as a dentist in turn.

Four Buildings from One Generation

All four surviving buildings of the Sasaki Family Residence went up under Shinkichiro. The dates given by the Agency for Cultural Affairs database and the city are:

• Document storehouse: 1900, 2-storey earthen-walled Dozo-zukuri storehouse, 72 square meters
• Main house: 1914, single-storey timber house, 158 square meters
• Urinal: around 1914, single-storey brick building, 2.8 square meters
• Yorokaku: 1921, 3-storey timber villa, 92 square meters

The storehouse came first, the house fourteen years later, and the villa seven years after that. The city says work on Yorokaku began around 1917 and took five years, so building resumed almost as soon as the main house was finished.

The four were registered on the same day, February 14, 2002, and gazetted on March 12 that year as register nos. 05-0075 (main house), 05-0076 (Yorokaku), 05-0077 (document storehouse) and 05-0078 (urinal). The main house and storehouse were registered as models of design; Yorokaku and the urinal for their contribution to the historic landscape.

Yurihonjo City notes some later alterations but says the group keeps much of its original character and is a valuable record of the building skills of its time.

How the Estate Is Laid Out

The main house stands roughly in the middle of the plot, facing more or less south. Yorokaku is a separate wing joined to it by a corridor, and the document storehouse lies behind that, toward the west of the site. The small brick urinal is on the east side, just in front of the east entrance of the main house that served the dental clinic. A newer house to the north is reached from the main house by an arched bridge.

Sources do not agree on the compass directions. The Agency for Cultural Affairs places Yorokaku to the southwest of the main house, while the city describes it as standing at the northwest corner of the front of the site. For the storehouse, the Agency says the west side of the estate and the city leaflet the northwest. Published sources do not settle which is right.

Visiting the Sasaki Family Residence

The Sasaki Family Residence is still a private home, and the city's pages give no open days or visiting arrangements; we could find no occasion on which any of the four buildings is opened to the public. Visitors should view the exterior from the street without entering the grounds, and keep any photography to the outside so as not to disturb the household or the practice.

The nearest station is Maego on the Yuri Kogen Railway Chokai Sanroku Line. The railway lists the Sasaki house (Yorokaku) as a 5-minute walk from Maego Station. The line connects with the JR Uetsu Line at Ugo-Honjo Station.

Of the four buildings, the 3-storey Yorokaku, which the Agency calls a local landmark, is the easiest to pick out from outside: look for the lookout-style top floor and the shachi ornaments at both ends of its ridge.