Komachi Sake Brewery Shop and Main House

A 1954 shopfront in black plaster

The Komachi Sake Brewery Shop and Main House (小町酒造店舗兼主屋, Komachi Shuzō Tenpo-ken-shuoku) in Sohara Ibukicho, Kakamigahara City, Gifu Prefecture, is the combined shop and family house of the Komachi Sake Brewery, built in 1954 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 2008/04/18 (registration number 21-0160). It stands on the south side of a plot bounded by roads on three sides, facing south onto the street.

It is a 2-storey timber building with a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles and a building area of 154 square metres. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the east side holds the shop and other rooms on an earthen Doma floor, while the west side is raised living space laid out on the four-room Yomadori plan. Trade and family life share one roof, the usual arrangement for a sake brewer's main house.

Black plaster, deep eaves and a cedar ball

The walls are finished in black Shikkui plaster and the eaves are thrown well forward in the Degeta-zukuri manner. Hanging from the heavy front is a sugidama, a ball of bound cedar sprigs that sake brewers hang at the eaves as the sign of their trade. The Agency writes that this exterior gives the building the dignity of a sake business.

The Komachi Sake Brewery Shop and Main House is the youngest of the five registered structures, 54 years old when it was registered. It sits easily beside the service gate of 1897 and the storehouse of 1925, most likely because its postwar builders kept the old merchant front of dark walls and tiled roofs.

What to look at

The front faces the street to the south, so cross the road to take it in whole: the black wall rising through both storeys, the long horizontal of the eaves and the sugidama beneath them.

The storehouse is built right against the east end. Set the two side by side and you can see how differently black plaster and black-painted boards catch the light.

Visiting

The Komachi Sake Brewery Shop and Main House is still a family home, and the living quarters are not open. A direct shop on the property sells the brewery's sake on weekdays, but the brewery does not say whether it occupies this building's doma shop. The exterior can be seen from the south street at any time. Shop days and directions from the station are on the Komachi Sake Brewery page.