Former Saito Family Residence

A Bonito Merchant's Compound

The Former Saito Family Residence (旧斎藤家住宅, Kyū-Saitō-ke Jūtaku) is a merchant's compound built around 1897 on the old main street of Ichinomiya, Chiba Prefecture, and its four buildings (main house, shop storehouse, storehouse and Inari shrine) were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on June 28, 2017. Locally it goes by the family's trade name, Suya Honke (寿屋本家).

From the Meiji era onward the Saito family ran a wholesale business in marine products, above all katsuobushi, the smoked and dried bonito that underpins Japanese dashi stock. Around 5,000 documents surfaced in the house, and part of that archive was transcribed and published in 2016 by the committee behind the East Kazusa cultural heritage revitalization project. Few merchant houses keep both their buildings and their paperwork together like this.

The buildings are credited to the head of the family at the time, Saito Kosuke. Here the sources part ways. Ichinomiya Town describes him as the founder of the local commercial high school, while the Chiba Prefectural Board of Education, writing his name with a different character, says he established the Ichinomiya Commercial Bank. Both accounts are given here because neither can be confirmed against the other.

Dating varies slightly too. The national database maintained by the Agency for Cultural Affairs places the main house around 1897 and gives the other three a broader mid-Meiji window of 1883 to 1897. The town and the prefecture both treat all four as work of about 1897. Every source agrees that the compound was laid out in a single campaign.

Four Buildings, Street to Rear

The compound faces west onto the street. At the front stands the two-storey Dozo-zukuri shop storehouse, the public face of the business. The single-storey main house adjoins its back wall and opens toward a garden. Behind the main house, in the northeast of the plot, a small Inari shrine faces south, and the storehouse occupies the far northeast corner.

Walking inward from the street, you pass from commerce to domestic life to worship to storage. The footprints shrink and swell with each role: 155 square metres for the main house, 61 square metres for the shop storehouse, 33 square metres for the storehouse and a mere 0.57 square metres for the shrine.

The registration criteria differ as well. The main house, shop storehouse and shrine were listed for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The storehouse alone was listed as a model of its building type, a nod to the quality of its construction rather than its presence on the street.

The Agency's records note alterations to the main house between 1926 and 1945 and a renovation of the shop storehouse in 2014.

Kept in Use

The Former Saito Family Residence remains in private ownership. According to the Chiba Prefectural Board of Education (page updated January 2025), a nonprofit group looks after its conservation and use: the shop storehouse operates as a café and the main house is open to visitors as well. The document survey and the reuse of the buildings both grew out of local efforts to put Ichinomiya's historic architecture to work for the town.

Keeping a business running inside a registered building is exactly what the registration system allows for, since it protects exteriors while leaving room for new uses inside.

Visiting and Getting There

The compound lies about 300 metres northwest of Kazusa-Ichinomiya Station on the JR Sotobo Line, roughly a five-minute walk. The Ichinomiya Tourism Association puts the limited express from Tokyo Station at about 60 minutes. Its listing also notes parking and restrooms on site.

The way in is the Suya Honke café in the shop storehouse. Opening days and hours are not published in any fixed form, so check the contact details on the tourism association's page or the café's own announcements before you go. This is private property: please do not enter the grounds outside opening hours.

How much you can see differs by building. The shop storehouse can be entered while the café is open, and the main house is also shown to visitors. For the shrine and storehouse at the back of the plot, ask the staff on the day whether you may approach them.