Former Koketsu Family Residence (Kominka Aiseki) Shop and Main House

Former Koketsu Family Residence Shop and Main House

The Former Koketsu Family Residence (Kominka Aiseki) Shop and Main House (旧纐纈家住宅（古民家あいせき）店舗兼主屋) in Honmachi 7-chome, Seki City, Gifu Prefecture, is a town house built as a sake shop and family home in the mid-Meiji period (1883–1897), and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on August 6, 2025 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a timber building of 2 storeys with a tiled roof and a building area of 108 square metres, altered in 1941 and again in 2021. Its registration number is 21-0307.

Seki City gives 1887 as the year of construction. Today the house is the core of Kominka Aiseki, a city-run community space, and it still holds the shop on the street and the living quarters behind under one roof.

Two Storeys Facing Honmachi-dori

The Koketsu shop and main house faces south onto Honmachi-dori (Agency for Cultural Affairs). It is a two-storey building under a gabled roof of pantiles, entered from the long side in the Hirairi manner, and the eastern half of the roof is dropped a level as an Ochimune. From across the street the two ridges at different heights are easy to read.

Inside, an earth-floored Doma runs along the street side, and the building once housed the office of a credit and purchasing association (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Seki City explains that in 1908 local cutlery makers founded the Seki Credit and Purchasing Association, forerunner of today's Seki Shinkin Bank, and placed its office in one corner of the house. The Gifu Shimbun notes that the house is also known as the birthplace of the bank.

Upstairs, the rooms on the street side form a pair of eight-mat Zashiki reception rooms opening into one another as Tsuzukima, and the posts and beams there are finished in Urushi lacquer (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The arrangement puts rooms for receiving guests directly above the place of trade.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency for Cultural Affairs registered the Former Koketsu Family Residence (Kominka Aiseki) Shop and Main House as a registered tangible cultural property for its contribution to the historic landscape of the country, and calls it a town house that conveys the prosperity of modern Honmachi. Gifu Prefecture presents it in the same way, as the premises of a former sake shop facing the street, and singles out the paired upstairs rooms with their lacquered frame.

What to Look For

Start outside, on Honmachi-dori. The step in the roof, where the eastern half of the gable drops lower, reads more clearly from a slight angle than from straight in front.

Then go upstairs in the Koketsu shop and main house. Look closely at the posts and beams of the paired reception rooms, which are finished in lacquer. Gifu Prefecture's registration sheet includes a photograph of the alcove in one of these upstairs rooms.

Visiting

As part of Kominka Aiseki, the Former Koketsu Family Residence (Kominka Aiseki) Shop and Main House is free to enter during opening hours. Seki City's floor guide lists the earth-floored hall and a living room on the ground floor and a tatami room and a wood-floored room upstairs. The Gifu Shimbun reported in 2022 that local high school students use the upstairs tatami room for study and conversation.

Rooms can be booked for private events (Seki City), so on some days a room may be closed to drop-in visitors. Opening hours and closing days are given on the group page. No official guidance on photography was found, so ask the staff before taking pictures.