Sasaki Risaburo Family Residence

Sasaki Risaburo Family Residence

The Sasaki Risaburo Family Residence (佐々木利三郎家住宅) is a merchant family's house in the old castle town of Iwaki Kameda, Yurihonjo City, Akita Prefecture, whose mid-Meiji main house and Taisho-era rice and doll storehouses were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (structures) on November 29, 2016 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The house is privately owned (Akita Prefecture).

According to Yurihonjo City, the Sasaki family dealt in kimono fabrics and rice from the Meiji era into the Taisho era, trading as Sasari under a mark read Yamae; the prefecture dates the business back to the feudal period. The family appeared on Meiji-era rankings of Akita's wealthiest households.

A Merchant House in Kameda

Kameda was the castle town of the Iwaki clan, lords of the small Kameda domain. The Sasaki Risaburo Family Residence faces Prefectural Route 69 (formerly National Route 341), the town's main street (Yurihonjo City). In the feudal period this road led east toward the Kameda jinya, the domain's administrative seat, and west to the Sea of Japan coast and on to the neighbouring Honjo domain, and merchant quarters lined it.

The head of the family, Sasaki Risaburo (1839 to 1894), is said to have spent several years building the main house, and his name appears on a town map of 1894 (Yurihonjo City). In 1921 the head of the Higashi Honganji temple stayed here on a visit to Kameda. Risaburo's grandson Hirokichi founded the Kameda credit union in 1923 and served as the last mayor of Kameda town from 1948 to 1955.

The Layout of the Property

The lot is enclosed by a black board fence 2 metres high and about 34 metres long, pierced by a Kabukimon gate, and by sheet-iron fences about 40 metres long on the east and west (Yurihonjo City). The shop-house stands at the front on the street, with the storehouses behind it, an arrangement the city describes as typical of Kameda merchant houses.

There were once five storehouses, among them stores for rice, documents and household goods, salt and timber; three, including the salt store, were demolished by 1995 (Yurihonjo City). Two remain: the rice storehouse at the centre of the north end of the lot, and the doll storehouse, the former document and household-goods store, on the west side between the main house and the rice store. The entrance to the rice storehouse lines up exactly with the Toriniwa, the earth-floored passage running through the main house.

The Three Registered Buildings

• Main house (registration number 05-0209): mid-Meiji, single-storey timber, 235 m², registered for its contribution to the historic landscape
• Rice storehouse (05-0210): Taisho era, two-storey Dozo-zukuri earthen-walled store, 86 m², registered as difficult to reproduce
• Doll storehouse (05-0211): Taisho era, two-storey earthen-walled store, 62 m², registered for its contribution to the historic landscape

All three were registered on November 29, 2016 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Yurihonjo City values the group as a complete Kameda merchant compound of a Meiji house and its storehouses, and as a survival of the townscape of the feudal merchant quarter. Each building is described on its own page.

Visiting and Getting There

The Sasaki Risaburo Family Residence is a private home, and no official city or prefectural information on interior access was found. The entrance front and the black board fence face Prefectural Route 69 and can be seen from the street; please stay outside the lot and respect the residents' privacy.

The nearest station is Ugo-Kameda on the JR Uetsu Line. The house lies in old Kameda, about 1.7 kilometres east-northeast of the station in a straight line (an estimate from Geospatial Information Authority of Japan location data). No official route guide was found.