Former Imai Family Residence Main House

The Shopfront of a Meiji Kimono Merchant

The Former Imai Family Residence Main House (旧今井家住宅主屋, Kyū Imai-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a mid-Meiji merchant house in Shinmachi, Sakura City, Chiba Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on December 5, 2019. It faces south onto Shinmachi Street in the old townspeople’s quarter of the Sakura castle town, and it was both shop and home for the Imai family, who sold kimono fabrics here under the trade name Surugaya from around the middle of the Meiji period.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the building to the mid-Meiji period, between 1883 and 1897, with alterations in the late Meiji period. It is a single-storey timber structure with a tiled roof and a building area of 60 square metres; Sakura City’s plan gives the floor area as 59.59 square metres. A parlor wing is attached to the back, and a storehouse stands further into the plot.

Why It Was Registered

The Former Imai Family Residence Main House was registered as a building that contributes to the historic landscape of the country. In its official description, the Agency for Cultural Affairs singles it out as a good example of how a Sakura merchant house looked and worked.

The logic of the building is simple: open the shop to the street, keep the family behind it. Three structures on the plot were registered together, but this is the one that gives the street its character.

What to Look For

Start with the roof. The house is entered on its gable end (a Tsumairi plan), yet the street side is finished as a hipped roof, with a deep lean-to, or Geya, projecting over the shopfront. Walk round to the rear and the roof turns into a plain gable, which is where the parlor wing joins on. One building, two roof forms: a quiet face for the street and a simple junction at the back.

The plan is worth understanding too. The front shop room, the mise, has an earth-floored strip along the street side, a Doma where customers were served. There is no through-passage of beaten earth running from front to back, as some town houses have; instead the raised floor of the shop leads directly to the living rooms behind. Customers stayed on the earth floor at the front, and the family moved through the house on the raised boards.

The Former Imai Family Residence Main House received seismic strengthening in fiscal 2024 and still holds its corner of Shinmachi Street as a low, single-storey shopfront.

Visiting

The exterior can be seen from Shinmachi Street at any time. Cross to the far pavement to see the hipped roof and the lean-to as a whole.

Since February 2026 the Former Imai Family Residence Main House has been used as a restaurant, Mugitoro Surugaya, so the interior is open only to people dining there during business hours. Public sources do not say which rooms are used for seating; if you hope to see the shop room or the rooms behind it, ask the staff. There are no separate viewing days or admission fees. When looking from the street, keep clear of the restaurant entrance.