A Taisho House on the North Side of Uramachi Street
The Hosaka Family Main House (保坂家住宅主屋, Hosaka-ke Jūtaku Shuoku, also written Hosakake Jutaku Shuoku) is a single-storey timber residence in the Uramachi quarter of Yuki City (結城市, Yūki), Ibaraki Prefecture, built during the Taisho era (1912-1926) and placed on the national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 25 July 2011.
The family that lives here has brewed sake in Yuki since the closing years of the Edo period, under the name Buyu (武勇). Their brewery occupies the south side of the street. The house stands directly opposite, on a plot that faces south, so the working half and the domestic half of one household look at each other across a public road. The Hosaka are said to have come to Yuki from Echigo, the old province that is now Niigata Prefecture.
Registered building area is 140 square metres. The ridge turns a corner and forms an L. The roof is yosemune-zukuri, hipped on all four faces and laid with sangawara pantiles, and a shitaya-bisashi, a subsidiary pentroof, runs below the main eaves along the front.
Why the House Was Registered
Registration is a lighter instrument than designation as an Important Cultural Property. Introduced in 1996 for buildings still in everyday use, it works by notification rather than by transfer of control: owners consult the state before major alteration and receive technical guidance and limited tax relief in return. The Hosaka main house carries registration number 08-0241 and was gazetted in the seventieth round.
The criterion cited is the one covering buildings that contribute to the historic landscape of the country, and that phrasing does real work in Yuki. The town's reputation rests on two things. One is honba Yuki-tsumugi, the hand-spun silk inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010. The other is the misegura, the thick-walled plastered shop-storehouse that fronts the old commercial streets north of the station. Yuki City lists fifteen separately registered properties in this quarter alone.
Against those tall fireproofed street fronts, the Hosaka house does something else. It stays low. One storey, a garden behind, verandas along two sides, an entrance set quietly off-centre. On that same July day in 2011, five buildings and a brick chimney at the Buyu brewery opposite entered the register as well, and the pair reads more sensibly as one household divided by a road than as two separate entries.
What Can Be Seen from the Road
The entrance sits toward the west end of the street-facing side. Behind it a six-mat and an eight-mat zashiki, formal tatami rooms, run one behind the other on a north-south line, with verandas wrapping the north and east. East of the entrance, across a central corridor, is a ten-mat guest zashiki with verandas of its own on the north and south. The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls the resulting elevation toward the garden an even and unemphatic one, which is an accurate account of what the hipped roof and the pentroof do together.
Yuki City's survey records a frontage of nine ken by a depth of six, a ken being roughly 1.8 metres, and raises the possibility that the easternmost bay of the frontage was added when the storehouse went up next door in 1922. Part of the west side has been altered since. What the surveyors singled out was the grade of the timber and the care of the joinery, both still in sound condition.
The practical position is simple and worth stating plainly. This is an occupied private home. The interior is closed, there are no opening hours and no admission charge, and the correct way to see the building is from the public road. Photographs taken from the street are unproblematic; walking onto the grounds is not acceptable. Yuki Station on the JR Mito Line lies about ten minutes away on foot, roughly one kilometre, by the north exit. The brewery across the road runs tours by advance reservation and keeps a shop on site, and that is the realistic anchor for an afternoon on this corner.
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Q&A
- Can visitors go inside the Hosaka Family Main House in Yuki?
- No. The house is a private residence in continuous use and the interior is closed to the public. Registered Tangible Cultural Properties carry no obligation to admit visitors. The exterior can be viewed from the public street; the grounds are private.
- When was the Hosaka Family Main House built, and when was it registered?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the construction period only as Taisho (1912-1926). The storehouse attached to its east end is precisely dated to 1922 by an ink inscription, and Yuki City's survey concludes that the main house was built first. Registration took effect on 25 July 2011.
- How do I reach the Hosaka Family Main House from Yuki Station?
- Leave by the north exit of Yuki Station on the JR Mito Line and walk north into the old commercial quarter, about one kilometre or ten minutes. The house is in Uramachi, on the north side of the street, facing the Buyu brewery.
- Is photography allowed at the Hosaka Family Main House?
- Photographing the exterior from the public road is fine. Interior photography is not possible, since the house is not open. People live here, so avoid pointing a lens at windows and doorways.
- What else is worth seeing near the Hosaka Family Main House?
- The Buyu brewery immediately opposite holds five registered buildings and a registered brick chimney, and offers tours by reservation. Yuki Sake Brewery, the Tsumugi-no-Yakata silk centre run by Okujun, and Yuki Kurabikan all sit within the same walkable district.
Basic Information
| Name | Hosaka Family Main House (保坂家住宅主屋) |
|---|---|
| Location | 135 and adjacent, Uramachi, Oaza Yuki, Yuki City, Ibaraki Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration no. 08-0241 |
| Year Designated | 2011 (registered and gazetted 25 July) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Building area approx. 140 sq m; Yuki City survey gives a frontage of 9 ken by a depth of 6 ken |
| Owner | Not recorded in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database; privately owned |
| Public Access | Exterior visible from the public road; interior not open |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Hosakake Jutaku Shuoku
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00008621
- Yuki City: Hosaka Residence, Registered Tangible Cultural Property
- https://www.city.yuki.lg.jp/kosodate-kyouiku/shougaigakushuu/bunkazai/bunkazai/tourokuyuukei/page003239.html
- Yuki City: List of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties
- https://www.city.yuki.lg.jp/kosodate-kyouiku/shougaigakushuu/bunkazai/bunkazai/tourokuyuukei/page003226.html
- Buyu Sake Brewery, official site
- https://buyu.jp/
Last verified: 2026.08.06