What the Imai Sake Brewery Shop and Main House Is
The Imai Sake Brewery Shop and Main House (今井酒造店店舗兼主屋, Imai Shuzōten Tenpo-ken-shuoku) in Toriyama-nakachō, Ota City, Gunma Prefecture, is an early Meiji-period (1868 to 1882) farmhouse moved to the brewery in 1900 to serve as its shop and family home, and it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on August 1, 2016.
It stands near the middle of the brewery grounds. Ota City records that the house originally belonged to a farming family in the village of Ōkawa (now the town of Oizumi) and was moved here around 1900, then remodeled. Under its roof were the retail counter, the office where the accounts were kept, the kitchen that fed the brewery workers, and the Imai family's own living rooms. It was renovated in 2003.
Why It Was Registered
The house was registered for contributing to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out the Imai Sake Brewery Shop and Main House as a good example of a large dwelling built on a farmhouse model.
It measures 10 by 6.5 ken (1 ken is about 1.8 meters), with a building area of 223 square meters; Ota City puts the ground floor at roughly 68 tsubo. The brewing buildings behind it date from 1908 onward, so this frame, from the early Meiji years, is the oldest of the six listed structures at Imai.
Rather than build a merchant house from scratch, the brewery took a large farmhouse from a nearby village and moved it onto the site. A Japanese farmhouse was laid out for work on a broad earthen floor at one end and for sleeping and receiving guests in matted rooms at the other. That arrangement adapted neatly to a country sake shop, which needed a counter, an office, a kitchen and a home all in one building.
What to Look For
The roof of the Shop and Main House is a Kirizuma-zukuri gable covered in Sangawara-buki pantiles, with a pent roof added on every side. That second, lower eave runs right around the building, which is why a two-story house looks so broad and low-slung.
As first built, the east end held a wide Doma, the beaten-earth work floor, while the west half followed a four-room grid known as ta-no-ji, after the kanji 田, whose shape it resembles. Take out the sliding partitions and the four rooms become one large hall. Trade and work on the earthen east side, living and guests in the gridded west side: the division comes straight from the farmhouse the building once was.
Look at the length of the ridge. At 10 ken, some 18 meters, the long roof of the Imai Sake Brewery Shop and Main House still reads as a farmhouse.
Visiting
The Imai Sake Brewery Shop and Main House includes the family's living quarters, and its interior is not open to the public. If you come onto the grounds as a customer of the shop or café during opening hours, you can see the house and its wraparound eaves from outside (checked September 25, 2026).
The brewery's website says nothing either way about photography. This is someone's home, so it is courteous to ask at the shop before taking pictures.
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Q&A
- When was the Imai Sake Brewery Shop and Main House built?
- It was built as a farmhouse in the early Meiji period (1868 to 1882) and moved to its present site in 1900. It was renovated in 2003.
- What was the Imai Sake Brewery Shop and Main House originally?
- A farmhouse in the village of Ōkawa, now the town of Oizumi in Gunma. After the move it was remodeled into the brewery shop and the Imai family home.
- Can you go inside the Imai Sake Brewery Shop and Main House?
- No. The interior is not open, but you can see the exterior from the grounds when the shop and café are open.
- What is distinctive about the floor plan of the Imai Sake Brewery Shop and Main House?
- It was first laid out like a farmhouse, with a wide earthen floor at the east end and a four-room ta-no-ji grid in the west half.
- When was the Imai Sake Brewery Shop and Main House registered as a cultural property?
- On August 1, 2016, as Registered Tangible Cultural Property No. 10-0331, on the same day as the brewery’s five other listed structures.
Basic Information
| Name | Imai Sake Brewery Shop and Main House (今井酒造店店舗兼主屋) |
|---|---|
| Location | 746-2 Toriyama Nakacho, Ota City, Gunma Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (building), No. 10-0331 |
| Year Designated | Registered August 1, 2016 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Two-story timber building, tiled roof, building area 223 square meters |
| Owner | Not listed (the Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives no owner name) |
| Public Access | Interior closed (exterior visible from the grounds during shop and café hours) |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Imai Sake Brewery Shop and Main House
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00011062
- Ota City: Imai Sake Brewery registered buildings (Japanese)
- https://www.city.ota.gunma.jp/page/4165.html
- Imai Shuzoten official website, Kazekura (Japanese)
- https://www.kaze-kura.com/
Last verified: 2026.09.24
