A Brewer's House That Was Also His Office
The Main Building of the Inaoka Family Residence (稲岡家住宅主屋, Inaoka-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a late Meiji-period sake brewer's house at 813-2 Mikuchi-chō in Kasai City, Hyōgo Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on 12 July 2005.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs record describes it in a single revealing phrase: the main house of a sake brewery, doubling as the business office. That double duty explains almost everything about how the building is put together. Ledgers and contracts were handled in the same rooms where the family took its meals, and the rhythm of the brewing year, rice arriving in autumn, water drawn through the cold months, moved through the same doorway as everyday life.
Kasai sits in the middle of the Harima plain, north-east of Himeji, in country long given over to rice. Sake brewing followed the rice, and the Inaoka house belongs to that older commercial landscape rather than to any city street.
The ridge runs east to west along the long side of the building, under a hip-and-gable roof of pantiles (irimoya-zukuri, sangawara-buki). Lean-to roofs called geya wrap the north, south, and east elevations, so the mass steps down in stages instead of rising as one flat wall. At the eastern end, where the earth-floored doma once served as the working entrance, the ridge itself is deliberately dropped. The roofline tells you which part of the house was for business before you find the door.
Why the Building Was Registered
Japan's Registered Tangible Cultural Property system, created in 1996, works differently from the older designation system that produces National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties. Registration is a lighter form of protection, intended to keep large numbers of modern-era buildings in active use rather than freezing them as museums. Owners accept notification requirements before major alterations and gain access to technical guidance and certain tax measures.
The Inaoka main building was accepted under the criterion of being a model of design (造形の規範となっているもの), in the forty-sixth round of registrations. Its register number is 28-0192, the prefix identifying Hyōgo. Registration was made on 12 July 2005 and announced by public notice on 2 August of the same year.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs assigns the building to the late Meiji era, roughly the closing years of the nineteenth century into the first decade of the twentieth. The Hyōgo Prefectural Board of Education list gives a slightly wider bracket, late Meiji through Taishō, so the exact construction year is best treated as approximate.
What earned the listing is not age alone. The house holds two architectural vocabularies at once, and holds them without strain.
Tradition Outside, Modernity in the Plan
The tsushi loft and its plastered windows
Above the ground floor sits a tsushi-nikai, a low half-storey tucked under the roof slope. It is too low to stand upright in comfortably and was used for storage, and because Japanese building registration counts only full storeys, the official structural description reads as a single-storey wooden building even though the house plainly has two levels of enclosed space. The listed building area is 170 square metres, about fifty-one tsubo.
Set into the tsushi wall are mushiko-mado, openings filled with thick vertical bars of plaster over a timber core. The name means insect-cage window. They ventilate the loft, resist fire, and give the upper wall a rhythm of light and shadow that changes through the day. Stand across the road in late afternoon and the bars throw stripes back onto the plaster behind them.
A corridor down the middle
Inside, the raised floor section carries a nakarōka, a central corridor one ken wide, roughly 1.8 metres. This is the detail specialists point to. Older Japanese houses of this class strung rooms together directly, one opening into the next, which meant that reaching a back room required walking through the rooms in front of it. A dedicated corridor separates circulation from occupation. Rooms gain doors of their own and, with them, a degree of privacy that earlier plans never offered.
The corridor entered Japanese domestic architecture in the Meiji period under Western influence and spread through the Taishō years. Finding one behind a facade of plastered lattice windows is what makes this house worth the visit for anyone interested in how Japanese building changed from the inside out.
Seeing the House Today
The building remains in private ownership. The Hyōgo Prefectural Board of Education register lists the owner simply as a private individual, and no public opening, guided tour, or admission arrangement has been announced. This is a lived-in house, not a visitor attraction, and there is no interior access.
What that leaves is the exterior, seen from the public road. The east-west ridge, the stepped geya roofs, and the mushiko-mado in the tsushi wall are all legible from outside, and for a building whose interest lies substantially in its massing, that is a good deal of the story. Photography from the road is not restricted, but the site is someone's home: do not enter the grounds, do not photograph through openings, and keep voices down.
Kasai is reached by the Hōjō Railway, a short local line running north from Ao Station. The nearest stop is Hokkeguchi, itself a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, a wooden station building of 1915 listed in 2014 and now housing a small bakery. Mikuchi-chō lies roughly twenty minutes on foot from the station, or about five minutes by taxi. Buses from Himeji Station toward Yashiro also serve the area. Drivers will find the Kakogawa-kita interchange on the Sanyō Expressway the closest access point.
Anyone making the trip should combine it with Ichijōji, the temple that gives Hokkeguchi Station its name. Its three-storey pagoda of 1171 is a National Treasure and one of the oldest dated pagodas in Japan; the main hall, rebuilt in 1628, is an Important Cultural Property. The temple stands about five kilometres west of the station in Sakamoto-chō and charges a 500 yen admission.
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Q&A
- Can visitors go inside the Inaoka Family Residence Main Building?
- No. The house is privately owned and remains a residence, with no published opening hours, tours, or admission fee. Registration as a Tangible Cultural Property carries no obligation to open a building to the public. Viewing is limited to the exterior from the public road.
- Why is the Inaoka Family Residence Main Building recorded as single-storey when it has an upper level?
- The upper level is a tsushi-nikai, a low loft under the roof used for storage rather than living. Japanese building records count only full storeys, so the official description reads wooden single-storey construction, tiled roof, building area 170 square metres. The plastered lattice windows visible high on the wall light that loft.
- What is the difference between the Inaoka Family Residence Main Building's registration and an Important Cultural Property designation?
- Registration, introduced in 1996, is a lighter category aimed at keeping modern-era buildings in everyday use. Owners notify the authorities before major alteration and receive technical and tax support. Designation as an Important Cultural Property is far more restrictive and applies to a much smaller number of buildings.
- How do I reach the Inaoka Family Residence Main Building in Kasai City?
- Take the Hōjō Railway north from Ao Station to Hokkeguchi, then walk about twenty minutes or take a taxi for roughly five. Neighbourhood buses run from Himeji Station toward Yashiro. By car, the Kakogawa-kita interchange on the Sanyō Expressway is the nearest exit. The address is 813-2 Mikuchi-chō, Kasai City.
- What else can I see near the Inaoka Family Residence Main Building?
- The Inaoka detached wing of the early Shōwa period stands immediately west and is separately registered. Hokkeguchi Station, a wooden building of 1915, was registered in 2014. Ichijōji temple, about five kilometres west, holds a National Treasure pagoda of 1171 and charges 500 yen for entry.
Basic Information
| Name | Inaoka Family Residence Main Building (稲岡家住宅主屋) |
|---|---|
| Location | 813-2 Mikuchi-chō, Kasai City, Hyōgo Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure); register no. 28-0192, 46th round; criterion: a model of design |
| Year Designated | Registered 12 July 2005; public notice 2 August 2005 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Wooden single-storey construction with tsushi loft, tiled roof, building area 170 square metres |
| Owner | Private individual |
| Public Access | Not open to the public; exterior viewing from the public road only |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: Inaoka-ke Jutaku Shuoku
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004809
- Cultural Heritage Online: Inaoka-ke Jutaku Shuoku
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/195809
- Hyogo Prefectural Board of Education: List of Nationally Registered Cultural Properties (Structures)
- https://www.hyogo-c.ed.jp/~shabun-bo/gyouseisituhp/top/31kunitouroku.pdf
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: Inaoka-ke Jutaku Hanare
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004810
- Kasai City: Ichijoji Three-storey Pagoda, National Treasure
- https://www.city.kasai.hyogo.jp/soshiki/34/1685.html
Last verified: 2026.08.26