The Rooms Behind the Counter
The Miwa Family Residence Main House (三輪家住宅主屋, Miwa-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is the early Taishō-era living wing of a merchant house at Makabe in Sakuragawa City, Ibaraki Prefecture, entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 18 October 2000. It is joined to the back of the shop that fronts the street, and a passer-by on Takajōmachi-dōri sees almost nothing of it beyond a low roof.
The frame runs 4 ken by 3 ken, the ken being the bay unit that governs the spacing of a Japanese timber structure. It is a single-storey building under a Kirizuma-zukuri gable roof, with a building area of 49 square meters. The register number is 08-0037.
The Miwa family opened a footwear shop on this plot 3 generations back. The street side handled the trade; the Miwa Family Residence Main House is where the household actually lived, and it has gone on doing that.
Six Mats, Then Eight
The order of the rooms is on record with the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Past the counting area on the shop's ground floor comes a 6-mat sitting room, and beyond it an 8-mat guest room. Routine business was settled at the front. Familiar callers were shown as far as the sitting room. Formal visitors were taken all the way through. A merchant household received people by degrees, and the plan is what made those degrees possible.
The guest room carries a Tokonoma alcove, staggered display shelves, and a Tsukeshoin writing alcove built out beneath a window. These belong to Shoin-zukuri, the formal reception manner of samurai residences and temple quarters, and here they appear in one room of a shoe seller's house. The Ibaraki Prefectural Board of Education describes the Miwa Family Residence Main House as small in scale yet carrying a composed design in the shoin idiom.
Set that room against a building area of 49 square meters and the arithmetic speaks for itself. A household of modest means gave up a large share of its floor space to the business of receiving other people properly.
One House, Two Descriptions
The national record describes the Miwa Family Residence Main House twice, and the two descriptions do not obviously agree. The structure column reads timber, single storey, tiled roof. The commentary says the building forms one continuous piece of Dozo-zukuri work with the shop storehouse in front of it. Thick-walled fireproof construction and ordinary timber framing are not the same thing.
The reading that fits both is that the plaster finish carries through without a break from the street building to the rooms behind, while the frame under that finish is plain timber. The house presents itself as part of the shop from outside and behaves like a timber dwelling inside.
There is sense in building it that way. Walls in Dozo-zukuri are heavy and their openings few, which keeps fire out and daylight with it. A single-storey timber wing at the rear can take light and air from the garden side. Makabe turned to storehouse construction after a fire in the Edo period, yet the parts of a house where people ate and slept stayed timber.
Nothing about this plot was grand. Add the 49 square meters of the Miwa Family Residence Main House to the 28 square meters of the shop in front and the whole comes to 77 square meters. Makabe as a town was selected an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings on 29 June 2010, and the Miwa plot lies inside that boundary.
Visiting the Miwa Family Residence Main House
The Miwa Family Residence Main House is a private home and neither its rooms nor its exterior are open to visitors. The plot cannot be entered, there is no admission charge and no opening time, and from the road the shop storehouse blocks most of the view. The 8-mat guest room described above is known from the records of the Agency for Cultural Affairs and the prefectural board rather than from anything a visitor can see.
What is left to look at is the roofline. Standing on Takajōmachi-dōri, the low tiled slope visible behind the taller street building is the Miwa Family Residence Main House. Photographing the shopfront from the public road is acceptable; do not step onto the property, and keep the residents out of the frame.
Makabe holds its doll festival, the Makabe Hina Matsuri, each year between 4 February and 3 March, on the dates Sakuragawa City gives as usual. More than 100 shops and houses put out displays and open their fronts, and some buildings that stay shut the rest of the year can be seen inside. The list changes annually and the Miwa house is not on it as a matter of course, so anyone hoping for a particular address should ask the Sakuragawa Tourism Association first.
Drivers will find the Takajōmachi car park at 279-1 Makabe, Makabe-cho, about 2 minutes away on foot, with a 500 yen charge per car during the doll festival. Coming by rail, the nearest useful station is Iwase on the JR Mito Line, from which the Sakuragawa city bus Yamazakura GO reaches the Shimojuku stop in about 40 minutes at a flat fare of 200 yen; transport IC cards including Suica and PASMO are accepted, and Takajōmachi-dōri is 5 minutes on foot from the stop. The Tsukuba Express route runs via the Tsukuba city bus north shuttle to Tsukubasanguchi and then the same Yamazakura GO service, roughly 90 minutes in all. Hired bicycles at Iwase Station and the 10 kilometers of the Tsukuba Kasumigaura Ring Ring Road are a slower and pleasanter option. (Checked 9 September 2026)
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Q&A
- Can the Miwa Family Residence Main House be visited, and is there a fee?
- No. It remains a private home and is closed to visitors, inside and out. It also sits behind the shop building, so little of it shows from the street. There is no admission fee and no opening time.
- What are the rooms of the Miwa Family Residence Main House like?
- A 6-mat sitting room lies behind the shop's counting area, and an 8-mat guest room lies beyond that. The guest room has an alcove, staggered display shelves and a built-in writing alcove, following the formal shoin manner, so the rooms run in sequence from the street towards the back of the plot.
- How is the Miwa Family Residence Main House related to the shop building in front?
- They are joined, with the 2-storey shop storehouse taking the street frontage and the single-storey main house attached at its rear. The two were registered separately, the shop as 08-0036 and the main house as 08-0037, on the same date.
- Is the Miwa Family Residence Main House a timber building or a plastered storehouse?
- The national record lists the structure as timber and single-storey, while its commentary describes the house as forming one piece of dozo-zukuri work with the shop in front. The plaster finish appears to carry through from the street building over a plain timber frame behind.
- When was the Miwa Family Residence Main House built and registered?
- It dates from the early Taishō era, between 1912 and 1925, and was entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 18 October 2000 under register number 08-0037.
Basic Information
| Name | Miwa Family Residence Main House |
|---|---|
| Location | 229 Makabe, Makabe-cho, Sakuragawa City, Ibaraki Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), register number 08-0037 |
| Year Designated | Registered on 18 October 2000 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Timber, single storey, tile roof, 4 ken by 3 ken, building area 49 square meters |
| Owner | Private individual |
| Public Access | Not open to the public; barely visible from the street behind the shop building; no admission charge |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Miwa Family Residence Shuoku (Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00001864
- National Cultural Properties Database, Miwa Family Residence Misegura (Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00001863
- Cultural Properties of Ibaraki, Miwa Family Residence Misegura and One Other Building (Ibaraki Prefectural Board of Education)
- https://kyoiku.pref.ibaraki.jp/bunkazai/bunkazai-registered-6541/
- Makabe Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings, Sakuragawa City (Sakuragawa City)
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/education/bunkazai/city_bunkazai/kuni_bunkazai/page003423.html
- Makabe Hina Matsuri, Sakuragawa City Tourism Guide (Sakuragawa City)
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/tourism_guide/play/page002066.html
- Sakuragawa City Bus Yamazakura GO Service Information (Sakuragawa City)
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/kurashi/koutsu/page005762.html
Last verified: 2026.09.08