Horiguchi Family Residence North Storehouse

The Smaller of the Two Rear Storehouses

The Horiguchi Family Residence North Storehouse (堀口家住宅北蔵, Horiguchi-ke Jūtaku Kitagura) is a two-storey Dozo-zukuri clay-walled storehouse of 1897 standing south of the main house, slightly north of the centre of the Horiguchi hardware merchants' compound in Kaminocho, Shibukawa City, Gunma Prefecture, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 4 December 2000.

It has a Kirizuma-zukuri gable roof of Sangawara-buki pan tiles and is entered from the gable end in the Tsumairi manner. With a building area of 33 square metres, the Horiguchi Family Residence North Storehouse is the smallest of the five registered Horiguchi buildings. The south storehouse, built the same year, stands beside it.

Why It Was Registered: Care Taken on a Small Store

The Horiguchi Family Residence North Storehouse was registered as a model of its building type. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a carefully made storehouse, pointing among other things to the Namako-kabe on its lower walls.

Namako-kabe is a facing of flat tiles set diagonally on the base of a wall, with the joints built up in raised white plaster; it protects the earthen wall from splashing rain and knocks. The North Storehouse is a modest building tucked well inside the compound, yet it was finished with the same care as the shop at the front, and that care is what the registration recognises.

What to Look For: A Turned Ridge and Two Lean-tos

The Horiguchi Family Residence North Storehouse turns its ridge at right angles to the shop and main house. Where those two run east to west, the storehouse runs north to south, presenting its gable end to the north.

Lean-to roofs, or Geya, are attached to the north and west sides, and the door opens on the north, facing the main house. Stepping out of the house brings you straight to the storehouse door, a layout that suits everyday fetching and storing.

Inside, the ground floor has no boarded floor and is left as beaten earth. The south storehouse is the same inside, which suggests the two were built for similar uses.

Visiting the Horiguchi Family Residence North Storehouse

The Horiguchi Family Residence North Storehouse is one of the buildings Horiguchi Co., Ltd. keeps as its former head office, the Misegura Kinenkan. No opening days or hours for the interior are published.

It stands deep in the plot behind the shop and main house, and how much of it can be seen from the street has not been confirmed. Please do not enter the grounds. The photographs in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database show the exterior and the tiled lower walls.