Sakai Family Residence Western-Style House

About the Sakai Family Residence Western-Style House

The Sakai Family Residence Western-Style House (酒井家住宅洋館, Sakai-ke Jūtaku Yōkan) is a 2-storey reinforced-concrete house built around 1930 in Rakuma, Maruoka-cho, Sakai City, Fukui Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2025.

The Sakai Family Residence Western-Style House is joined to the main house and, according to Sakai City, stands on the west side of the estate. With a building area of just 34 m² it is small, yet among the timber buildings around it, it is the one that looks as if it were built of stone.

Concrete Among Timber

The Western-Style House was registered as a model of form, and the Council for Cultural Affairs described it as an elaborately designed Western-style building.

Sakai City explains that it was built because the head of the family had made his fortune in business, and suggests that a Western-style building of this kind was a great rarity in the area at the time. A reinforced-concrete addition of around 1930 grafted onto a late Meiji timber house shows how a provincial businessman's home took on Western forms.

Mock Stone and a Curved Pediment

The walls of the Sakai Family Residence Western-Style House are rendered in mortar scored with joint lines, so that the concrete reads as coursed masonry.

At the centre of the eaves rises a pediment shaped like a karahafu, the undulating cusped gable of Japanese temple and castle gateways, and the family crest is set on it. A Western frontispiece made from a Japanese curve and a family badge is the detail most likely to catch your eye.

On the upper floor, pointed arches and round arches alternate along the windows, which gives a lively rhythm to a modest façade. A balcony projects from the west side.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records a family story that the roof was used to look out over Fukui city, which lies to the southwest across the Kuzuryū River.

Seeing the Sakai Family Residence Western-Style House

The Western-Style House is part of a private home and is not open to the public (checked October 2026). We could not confirm how much of it is visible from outside the property.

Please stay off the grounds and respect the household's privacy. The layout and history of the whole estate are on the Sakai Family Residence (Maruoka) page.