Saito Family Residence

A Village Headman's Compound on the Old Hokuriku Road

The Saito Family Residence (齋藤家住宅, Saitō-ke Jūtaku) is the compound of a long-established landowning family in Funatsucho, Sabae City, Fukui Prefecture, where eight structures dating from the late Edo period (1751 to 1830) to 1936 were registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on November 29, 2016. Their registration numbers run consecutively from 18-0158 to 18-0165.

The site sits at the southern edge of Sabae, on the corner where the old Hokuriku Road (Hokurikudō), the highway linking Kyoto with the Japan Sea coast, turns sharply toward what was once the ferry crossing of the Hino River. Anyone travelling the road on foot would have passed right by the gate.

According to Sabae City, the Saito were major landowners from the Edo period onward and served for generations as Shōya, the village headmen who handled tax collection and local administration for the domain. The reception wing of the main house is said to have been built for a visit by the domain lord, a detail that says a good deal about the family's standing.

How the Compound Fits Together

The Saito Family Residence meets the old road along its eastern edge. The front entrance is marked by a pair of gateposts in Shakudani stone, a green-grey volcanic tuff quarried near Fukui, whose main posts stand 3.1 metres high. Beside them, running north to south along the road, is the rice storehouse, its upper walls finished in white Shikkui plaster.

Inside the gate, a long, narrow shed runs east to west along the path to the front door of the main house, screening the entrance court from the garden. Facing it is the East Gate, built so that honoured guests could be led straight to the reception rooms. The main house occupies the centre of the plot, with the annex joined to its west side. Across the garden on the western edge stand the middle storehouse and, attached to its north end, the new storehouse.

Construction spans roughly 180 years:

• Late Edo period (1751 to 1830): the main block of the main house and the rice storehouse
• Final years of the Edo period (1830 to 1868): the reception wing of the main house and the East Gate
• 1877 (Meiji 10): kitchen section added to the main house
• 1909 (Meiji 42): the shed
• Late Meiji period (1898 to 1912): the gateposts
• 1921 (Taisho 10): the middle storehouse
• 1928 (Showa 3): the annex
• 1936 (Showa 11): the new storehouse

Two dates need a note. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the kitchen extension as Meiji 10, which is 1877, while Sabae City's page pairs Meiji 10 with 1878. For the annex, the Agency's database lists the era as Showa 3 but the Western year as 1870, which cannot both be right; Sabae City gives Showa 3 (1928). This page follows the era given by both sources, Showa 3, or 1928.

All eight were registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. What makes the Saito Family Residence worth a look is that the whole sequence survives on one plot: a late Edo house and storehouse at the core, then a century of additions through the early Showa years. The rice storehouse and gateposts present the family's standing to the road, the shed and East Gate organise the space in front of the house, and the two storehouses at the back show how storehouse design changed in the modern era.

Visiting and Getting There

The Saito Family Residence is a private home, and Sabae City notes that the interiors are not open to the public. Visitors cannot enter the grounds, so a visit means viewing the exterior from the public road. The gateposts and rice storehouse on the street side are easy to see; the buildings deeper in the plot are mostly hidden from view.

If you take photographs, do so from the road, and keep clear of residents and vehicles coming in and out. There is no visitor parking.

The nearest station is Sabae on the Hapi-Line Fukui railway. The house lies about 1.5 kilometres southwest of the station in a straight line; allow a little over 20 minutes on foot. Questions about the property can be directed to the cultural properties section of the Sabae City Cultural Affairs Division (tel. 0778-51-5999, Japanese only).