Saito Family Residence Main House

The Heart of a Headman's House

The Saito Family Residence Main House (齋藤家住宅主屋, Saitō-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a late Edo period (1751 to 1830) dwelling at the centre of the Saito family compound in Funatsucho, Sabae City, Fukui Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on November 29, 2016, under number 18-0158. It is a timber building, single-storey with a 2-storey section, under a tiled roof, and covers 368 square metres.

The house is really two wings joined together. The main block, with its ridge running east to west, held the family's daily life and business. Projecting north from it is a reception wing with a north-south ridge, said to have been built for a visit by the domain lord and dated by Sabae City to the last decades of the Edo period (1830 to 1868).

A kitchen section followed in 1877. Sabae City's page records the same addition as Meiji 10 with the year 1878, but Meiji 10 corresponds to 1877, which is also the year given by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

Why It Was Registered

The Saito Family Residence Main House was registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency's citation singles out one detail: the gable ends on the front of the roof are plastered over rather than left with their timber framing exposed, a treatment it describes as characteristic of the area. The face the house turns toward the old road is a local one.

The plan tells you what kind of family lived here. Alongside the main block, where the household lived and worked, the reception rooms (Zashiki) were given a wing of their own. If the story of the lord's visit is accurate, the Saito were, by the end of the Edo period, a household that could host a daimyo's party under its own roof.

Three building campaigns overlap in this one house: the late Edo main block, the reception wing from the final Edo years, and the early Meiji kitchen. Rather than rebuilding, each generation added on.

What to Look For

Start with the front gable. Where you might expect exposed posts and beams in the triangle beneath the roof, the surface is sealed in plaster. Compare it with other old houses in the area and the shared habit becomes easy to spot.

Then consider the link between the reception wing and the East Gate. That gate was built specifically to receive honoured guests into the reception wing, and it stands between the front entrance court and the garden on the east. Guests had their own route in, separate from the door the household used, a measure of how much weight the Saito placed on the reception rooms of the Saito Family Residence Main House.

The roofline is worth a look as well. Because the reception wing meets the main block at a right angle, ridges run in two directions, and a partial upper floor rises from what is otherwise a single-storey house.

Visiting

The main house is still a private home, and Sabae City notes that the interior is not open to the public. Visitors cannot enter the grounds.

Standing at the centre of the plot, the house is only partly visible from the public road along the old Hokuriku Road. Viewing and photography are limited to what can be seen from the street. Directions to the compound are on the Saito Family Residence page.