An Inn of 1823 on the Hokkoku Kaido
The Former Masuo Family Residence, Main Building (旧増尾家住宅主屋, Kyū-Masuo-ke Jūtaku Shuoku, also romanised Kyu-Masuoke Jutaku Shuoku) is a late Edo-period house in the hamlet of Itadori, Minamiechizen Town, Nanjo District, Fukui Prefecture, built in Bunsei 6 (1823) and entered on Japan's National Register of Tangible Cultural Properties (buildings) on 1 August 2016.
It was a hatago, the kind of inn that took in ordinary travellers on foot rather than officials with an escort. The road outside is the Hokkoku Kaidō, which climbed south out of Echizen over Tochinoki Pass into Ōmi Province, today's Shiga, and continued toward Kyoto.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs register records a single structure: timber frame, two storeys, thatched roof, building footprint of 111 square metres. The same entry files the house under a category used for tertiary-industry buildings, which is a dry way of saying that this was a place of business before it was a home.
Itadori sits about ten kilometres uphill from Imajō, the much larger post town on the plain below, with roughly five kilometres of further climbing to reach the pass. Shibata Katsuie had the route improved in Tenshō 6 (1578) to shorten his journeys to Oda Nobunaga's castle at Azuchi, and traffic came with the improvement. Yūki Hideyasu, first lord of the Fukui domain, placed a checkpoint at Itadori, and domain retainers were later stationed at the barrier post here.
Local accounts say the Masuo family traded under the shop name Kome-ya and that its heads also held office as village officials. Descriptions of the hamlet in the last decades of the Edo period count more than fifty households and seven inns among them. Four thatched houses remain.
The Helmet Roof and the Case for Registration
Registration came in the eighty-fourth round of listings under register number 18-0157, and the criterion applied was that the building is a model of its kind of design.
The roof is built in kabuto-zukuri, a form named for the samurai helmet. Begin with an irimoya roof, the hipped-and-gabled type, then cut the front slope back and raise it. What appears above the entrance is a broad triangle of gable wall, opened up for light and for air. Farmhouses through the snow country of central Honshu used that shape to ventilate an upper floor given over to silkworms or to storage. At the Masuo house the entrance sits on the gable end, an arrangement called tsumairi, so the helmet faces the street head on.
The interior plan reads as an inn and not as a farmhouse. A niwa, the earth-floored working strip found in most Japanese vernacular houses, runs along the front. Behind it the raised floor divides into two rows. The street-side row carries three rooms in sequence, Kuchi-no-ma, Naka-no-ma and Oku-no-ma. The rear row holds the Daidoko, kitchen and daily living space, and the Butsuma with its household Buddhist altar. Guests moved along one row. The family kept the other.
Put those two things together, a helmet roof turned toward the road and a three-room guest range set behind an open earth floor, and you have what the register singles out. Fukui has other thatched houses. It has very few that still show how an inn on this particular road was laid out.
Snow accounts for a good deal of the construction. The Imajō district is reported to have recorded 244 centimetres of accumulated snow in 2011. Horizontal boarding is fixed low around the walls each winter to take the weight, and on heavy years the boards themselves disappear.
Walking Itadori
Visitors see the Former Masuo Family Residence from the outside. No regular interior opening has been announced. The hamlet's thatched houses are looked after by caretakers, and people live in some of them, so the courtesy owed here is the courtesy owed to any neighbourhood: keep to the stone-paved lane, keep your voice down, and point the camera at the buildings rather than at yards and windows. Photography of the exteriors from the public lane is not restricted.
Tourism listings for Itadori give 9:00 to 17:00 as the practical window for looking around, and there is a car park set aside for visitors. Questions about the buildings themselves go to the Minamiechizen Town Board of Education on 0778-47-8005.
Driving takes about twenty minutes from the Imajō interchange on the Hokuriku Expressway. By rail the nearest station is Imajō, which since 16 March 2024 has been operated by Hapi-Line Fukui rather than JR West; when the Hokuriku Shinkansen reached Tsuruga, the old Hokuriku Main Line between Tsuruga and Daishōji passed to the new company. From the station you will still want a car or a taxi for the last stretch.
Choose autumn if you can. The lane runs on a slope, and meltwater and rain are channelled down a gutter cut along its edge, some of it diverted into the house plots. In deep winter the road toward Tochinoki Pass can be hard going, and the hamlet is one of the snowiest inhabited places in the prefecture.
A note for anyone searching maps. This Itadori is in Fukui Prefecture. A place written with the same two characters exists in Gifu Prefecture, within Seki City, and the two are easy to confuse. The Fukui one is reached from Imajō.
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Q&A
- Can you go inside the Former Masuo Family Residence, Main Building?
- No regular interior opening has been announced. The building is viewed from the stone-paved lane that runs through Itadori. Minamiechizen Town owns it and the Town Board of Education (0778-47-8005) handles enquiries.
- When was the Former Masuo Family Residence, Main Building built, and when was it registered?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives Bunsei 6 (1823) as the date of construction. It was registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 1 August 2016, register number 18-0157.
- What does kabuto-zukuri mean at the Former Masuo Family Residence, Main Building?
- It describes a thatched roof whose front slope has been cut back and lifted, leaving a triangle of gable wall above the entrance. The silhouette suggested a samurai helmet, hence the name. The opening ventilates and lights the upper floor.
- How do you reach the Former Masuo Family Residence, Main Building and Itadori post station?
- About twenty minutes by car from Imajō interchange on the Hokuriku Expressway. The nearest railway station is Imajō, on the Hapi-Line Fukui line since March 2024; a car or taxi is needed for the remaining ten kilometres or so.
- Is the Former Masuo Family Residence, Main Building the only registered building at Itadori?
- So far as the published sources show, it is the only building at Itadori carrying its own entry on the national register. The other surviving thatched houses in the hamlet are described as recognised under Fukui Prefecture's traditional dwellings programme rather than nationally registered.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Masuo Family Residence, Main Building (旧増尾家住宅主屋) |
|---|---|
| Location | 35-1 Itadori, Minamiechizen Town, Nanjo District, Fukui Prefecture |
| Designation | National Registered Tangible Cultural Property (building), register no. 18-0157; criterion: a model of its kind of design |
| Year Designated | 1 August 2016 (Heisei 28) |
| Quantity | 1 structure |
| Dimensions | Timber frame, two storeys, thatched roof; building footprint 111 sq m; built Bunsei 6 (1823) |
| Owner | Minamiechizen Town |
| Public Access | Exterior viewing only; no regular interior opening announced. Visitor parking at Itadori. Enquiries: Minamiechizen Town Board of Education, 0778-47-8005 |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Kyu-Masuo-ke Jutaku Shuoku
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00011126
- Minamiechizen Town Tourism Information — Itadori-juku
- https://www.minamiechizen.com/spot/19085/
- Fukui Prefecture Official Tourism Site (Fukui.com) — Itadori-juku
- https://www.fuku-e.com/spot/detail_1125.html
- Fuku-iro, Fukui City Official Tourism Site — Itadori-juku
- https://fuku-iro.jp/spot/detail_11288.html
Last verified: 2026.08.24