Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Kimono Storehouse

The smallest storehouse, with the second-tallest ridge

The Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Kimono Storehouse (小見家住宅（水村園）着物蔵, Komi-ke Jūtaku Kimonogura) is a 2-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse built in the early Meiji era at the Mizumuraen tea shop in Honmachi, Takasaki City, Gunma Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 4, 2000.

It covers 17 square metres and stands hard against the north gable of the New Zashiki, second from the south in the row of storehouses along the west side of the lot. Its plan measures 2 and a half Ken by 1 and a half ken. The ridge runs north to south under a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof of Sangawara-buki tiles, the entrance is on the long side in the Hirairi manner, and the fire-proof doorway, the Tomae, faces east.

The name suggests what it held: clothing, and above all kimono, which a merchant family had every reason to keep behind fire-resistant walls.

Why it was registered

The Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Kimono Storehouse carries registration No. 10-0045 and was listed as a building that would not be easy to reproduce.

Small as it is, the Agency for Cultural Affairs gives it a central role. It is the smallest storehouse in the group, the Agency notes, yet its ridge is second in height only to the New Storehouse, and it occupies the core of the storehouse row that served as the lot's firebreak. Next to the low New Zashiki, it is where the wall of earth first rises to full height.

It also belongs to the domestic side of the property. In its notes on the Miso Storehouse, the Agency groups the New Zashiki, the Kimono Storehouse and the Miso Storehouse together as the inward-facing, household part of the premises, apart from the storehouses that held the tea stock.

What to look for

Watch its proportions. Two storeys stacked on a plan only 1 and a half ken deep make the Kimono Storehouse tall and narrow when seen from the gable end, and the single-storey New Zashiki beside it exaggerates the effect.

Its doorway opens east onto the central alley. To the north, a gap of 1 ken separates it from the Miso Storehouse, which uses the space as a working apron in front of its door; here the line of storehouses pauses.

Across the alley runs the long wall of the Brick Storehouse, so that plaster and brick face each other across a passage only a few steps wide.

Visiting

The Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Kimono Storehouse is a private building behind a working tea shop and is not open to the public. Because its doorway faces the inner alley, you would need to be inside the lot to see its front. Ask at the shop about viewing or photography.

If you are invited in, stand toward the south end of the alley: from there the roofline steps up clearly from the New Zashiki to the Kimono Storehouse.