A Rice Granary Built of Volcanic Stone
The Former Yamaya Family Residence Stone Storehouse (旧山谷家住宅石倉, Kyū Yamaya-ke Jūtaku Ishikura), which today houses the Higuchi Kiichirō Memorial Museum (樋口季一郎記念館, also written Higuchi Kiichiro), is a two-storey stone rice granary built in 1938 in the Takaoka district of Hachiman-chō, Ishikari City, Hokkaido, and was listed as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 6 March 2024.
It is a small building. The registered floor area is twenty square metres, roughly the footprint of a single-car garage, and on that base it carries two full storeys of cut stone under a sheet-metal gable roof.
What it held was rice. Farms along the south bank of the Shiratsukari River produced far more grain than any household could eat, and storing that surplus was a serious technical problem in a place where the ground freezes from November until April. Stone solved several of those problems at once. It did not burn. It held a steadier temperature than timber. It did not rot when snow banked against the walls for four months of the year.
The stone has a name of its own. Sapporo nanseki (札幌軟石), or Sapporo soft stone, is a welded tuff that formed about forty thousand years ago, when an enormous pyroclastic flow from the Shikotsu caldera cooled and consolidated across the land south of present-day Sapporo. Serious quarrying began in 1875 at Ishiyama, in what is now the city's Minami Ward, and the pale grey stone, speckled with white pumice, went into public buildings, merchant warehouses and farm outbuildings across the region. Hokkaido recognised it as a heritage asset of the prefecture in 2018.
Why This Building Was Registered
Registration came through in the 106th round of national registrations, under registration number 01-0167, on 6 March 2024. The criterion applied was the broadest of the three the system offers: that the building contributes to the historic landscape of the country.
That wording repays attention, because it tells you what the Agency for Cultural Affairs actually valued. The granary was not registered for rarity of design, nor for the reputation of whoever built it. It was registered because it belongs to a particular place, and because taking it away would visibly change how that place looks.
Japan's registered tangible cultural property system, created in 1996, works on a different principle from the older designation system. Designation protects a small number of outstanding structures under strict controls. Registration throws a much wider net over buildings more than fifty years old, asks comparatively little of owners, and is designed to keep modern-era buildings in everyday use rather than seal them off. A farm granary in a hamlet of a few dozen households is precisely the sort of building the system was written to catch.
The Agency's own summary singles out the exterior, noting that the Sapporo soft stone walls help form the character of the settlement. Drive up from the Ishikari lowland and the point becomes obvious. The Takaoka terrace sits ten to twenty metres above sea level while the plain below it does not, farmsteads are spaced far apart, and a grey stone box standing among timber outbuildings reads clearly from a distance.
The Storehouse's Second Life
Rice left the building long ago. In 2020 the granary reopened as the Higuchi Kiichirō Memorial Museum, a single-room display devoted to Higuchi Kiichirō (1888–1970), a lieutenant general of the former Imperial Japanese Army. According to the museum, its founder and director Ezaki Mikio wanted a dedicated venue for Higuchi's record, and approached Higuchi's grandson, the musicologist Higuchi Ryūichi, before proceeding. An opening ceremony was held in September 2020, with general admission beginning the following month.
Two episodes account for Higuchi's reputation. In March 1938, while heading the Harbin Special Agency in Manchuria, he was involved in permitting Jewish refugees stranded at the Soviet border station of Otpor to cross into Manchurian territory. In August 1945, as commander of the Fifth Area Army, he ordered Japanese forces on Shumshu, at the northern end of the Kuril chain, to resist a Soviet landing that came after Japan had already announced its surrender.
Both episodes are the subject of continuing debate. The museum states that some twenty thousand refugees were saved at Otpor; researchers who have worked through the surviving documentation give figures that are considerably smaller and that vary between accounts, and the extent of Higuchi's personal authority in the decision remains an open historical question. What a visitor receives here is the museum's account, presented directly and without hedging. Setting it beside published scholarship is a reasonable way to read the exhibit.
At the centre of the room stands a desk that the museum identifies as the one Higuchi used during his Fifth Area Army command. Panels around the walls carry the rest of the narrative.
Details Worth Slowing Down For
The doorway is set in the east gable end, sheltered by a lean-to roof that keeps drifting snow off the threshold. Inside there is a single room with an earth floor, and the roof frame is left exposed overhead: beams crossing the width, short struts standing on them to carry the purlins. This is wagoya, the ordinary Japanese roof structure, and seeing it unconcealed inside stone walls is one of the pleasures of the interior.
The west gable carries the detail most people photograph. A small window fitted with an iron shutter is set into the wall, and above it the family's house crest is worked in kote-e, raised plaster relief modelled with a trowel. Kote-e is more usually associated with the merchant storehouses of Honshū towns, which makes its appearance on a Hokkaido farm granary of 1938 an unusual survival.
Look at the wall surface itself while you are close to it. Sapporo soft stone weathers to a warm grey and takes lichen readily, and the white pumice inclusions that give the material its speckled look are easiest to pick out on the shaded north face.
Practical points, since none of them appear on the Agency's record. The museum opens Thursday to Sunday, 11:00 to 15:00, and admission is 500 yen for high school students and above, free for junior high school students and younger. Through the winter it keeps the same four days but operates by advance reservation only, and unscheduled closures are possible, so a phone call ahead is sensible. Takaoka has no rail service and effectively no bus service; almost everyone drives. Reckon on about 45 minutes from Sapporo Station and roughly 15 minutes from JR Ishikari-Tōbetsu Station. The museum's website does not state a policy on interior photography, so ask at the reception desk before raising a camera.
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Q&A
- Can I go inside the Former Yamaya Family Residence Stone Storehouse, and what does it cost?
- Yes. The building operates as the Higuchi Kiichirō Memorial Museum and opens Thursday through Sunday, 11:00 to 15:00. Admission is 500 yen for high school students and above and free for anyone younger. From December to March the same four days apply but visits must be booked in advance through the museum's enquiry page. Temporary closures happen, so confirm before travelling.
- How do I reach the Former Yamaya Family Residence Stone Storehouse from Sapporo?
- By car, in about 45 minutes from Sapporo Station. The address is 103-3 Takaoka, Hachiman-chō, Ishikari City, inside the grounds of the guesthouse Solii. From JR Ishikari-Tōbetsu Station the drive takes roughly 15 minutes, and from New Chitose Airport about an hour and twenty minutes. There is no practical public transport to the hamlet, so a rental car or taxi is close to essential.
- What is the Former Yamaya Family Residence Stone Storehouse made of, and why was stone used?
- The walls are Sapporo nanseki, a welded tuff quarried south of Sapporo and formed by a pyroclastic flow from the Shikotsu caldera around forty thousand years ago. Settlers valued it because it resists fire, insulates well and stands up to prolonged snow contact. Those qualities mattered for a building whose job was to keep harvested rice sound through a Hokkaido winter.
- Why was the Former Yamaya Family Residence Stone Storehouse registered as a cultural property in 2024?
- It was registered on 6 March 2024 under the criterion that a building contributes to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to the stone exterior as an element that shapes the character of the farming settlement along the Shiratsukari River. Registration is a lighter form of protection than designation and is intended to keep such buildings in use.
- Is there anything else to see near the Former Yamaya Family Residence Stone Storehouse?
- Yes. A second granary from the same farmstead, the Former Yamaya Family Residence Wooden Storehouse of 1911, was registered on the same day and stands to the southwest. The former main house and stable barn have been converted into the two-building guesthouse Solii. Because the wooden granary's interior is not publicly opened, ask the museum staff what can be viewed on the day of your visit.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Yamaya Family Residence Stone Storehouse (Higuchi Kiichirō Memorial Museum) / 旧山谷家住宅石倉（樋口季一郎記念館） |
|---|---|
| Location | 103-3 Takaoka, Hachiman-chō, Ishikari City, Hokkaido |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration no. 01-0167, 106th round |
| Year Designated | Registered 6 March 2024 (Reiwa 6) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Stone construction, two storeys, sheet-metal roof, floor area 20 m²; built 1938, repaired in the 1940s to 1950s and again in 2019 |
| Owner | AI Kenchiku Co., Ltd. |
| Public Access | Open as the Higuchi Kiichirō Memorial Museum, Thursday to Sunday 11:00 to 15:00; admission 500 yen (high school and above), free for younger visitors; advance reservation required in winter |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Former Yamaya Family Residence Stone Storehouse (Higuchi Kiichiro Memorial Museum)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00014702
- Cultural Heritage Online: Former Yamaya Family Residence Stone Storehouse
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/602700
- Higuchi Kiichiro Memorial Museum: Access and opening information
- https://higuchi-museum.jp/access.html
- Higuchi Kiichiro Memorial Museum: About the museum
- https://higuchi-museum.jp/about/about.html
- Hokkaido Board of Education: List of nationally registered cultural properties
- https://www.dokyoi.pref.hokkaido.lg.jp/hk/bnh/bun-hogo-tourokuitiran.html
- Hokkaido Heritage: Sapporo Soft Stone
- https://www.hokkaidoisan.org/sapporo_nanseki.html
- Ishikari Kominka Tourism: The Former Yamaya Family Farmstead
- https://www.ishikari-kominka.jp/yamaya/
Last verified: 2026.08.27