Ito Family Residence Storehouse

A Two-Storey Store for Farm Tools

The Ito Family Residence Storehouse (伊藤家住宅土蔵, Itō-ke Jūtaku Dozō) is an early Showa-era storehouse on the Ito family estate in Masuo 4-chome, Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on November 2, 2018. It is a 2-storey timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 27 square metres, standing west of the retirement house on the south side of the property, where it still holds the farm's tools.

Its ridge runs east to west under a gabled Kirizuma-zukuri roof, which Kashiwa City records as Sangawara-buki pantiles. The door is centred on the north wall and sheltered by a lean-to Geya, so the storehouse faces north.

The walls are built in the Shinkabe manner, with the posts left visible. Many people picture a Japanese dozo as a heavy box whose thick clay walls bury the frame; here the posts show on the outside. Along the sides, the lower walls are finished to look like stonework, so only the base of the building takes on the texture of stone.

Built Stout With Through-Posts

Inside, the floors are boarded, and thick through-posts running unbroken from ground floor to upper floor are set every half ken, about 0.9 metres. For a building of just 27 square metres that is a close spacing, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the Ito Family Residence Storehouse as sturdily built.

Farm tools are heavy, awkwardly shaped and constantly taken in and out. Strong floors and closely spaced posts would have been a practical necessity for a working tool store.

Dating and Why It Was Registered

The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the Ito Family Residence Storehouse to the early Showa era, between 1926 and 1945. Kashiwa City places it in the first years of Showa, based on documents and on the structure itself.

It was registered as a building that contributes to the historic landscape of the country. The city points out that two-storey, tile-roofed timber storehouses like this one are common among ordinary houses in the Masuo district, and values it as a good example of a local type. Its worth lies in being typical: the kind of store every farm here once had, still in daily use.

Visiting

The Ito Family Residence Storehouse is inside a private estate where the owners live, and it is still used for tools. The interior is closed and the property cannot be entered; the exterior can only be viewed from places open to the public.

Directions and visiting etiquette for the estate as a whole are on the Ito Family Residence page.