What the Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing is
The Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing is a Taisho-era guest building in the Sakurai district of Makabe, Sakuragawa City, Ibaraki Prefecture, entered in the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 12 July 2005 under registration number 08-0193. It is timber-framed, two storeys with a single-storey section, tile-roofed, with a building area of 84 square metres.
It stands southeast of the reception room of the main house, deep in the compound and largely hidden from the street. It went up while the Yaguchi household was prospering from silk reeling, and it is among the latest of the nine registered buildings here.
The Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing is really two structures joined. The western part is a single-storey block with its ridge running east to west, roofed in the Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable form, holding a 6-mat and a 3-mat room with a Engawa veranda wrapped around them. Behind it to the east stands a two-storey block, its ridge running north to south, also hip-and-gabled, measuring 3.5 by 2.5 bays.
The upper floor is a single room of about 12 mats. It has an alcove, staggered shelves and a flat writing bay, the three fittings that together define a formal Shoin-zukuri reception room, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs record calls the work high quality. This was never an everyday living space. It was built to receive people.
Why it is registered
The Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing is listed under the criterion for buildings that contribute to the historic landscape. Five Yaguchi buildings were registered together in 2005: the main house, this wing, and the stone, rear and grain storehouses. The store, the two sleeve storehouses and the gate, all of them visible from the road, had gone on the register in 2000.
The sequence of those two rounds follows the way the compound reveals itself. What the street could see was recorded first; the depths of the plot and the land across the road followed five years later. The result is that the Yaguchi holding is documented continuously from front to back.
Part of the value of the Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing lies in scarcity. Makabe has no shortage of late Edo and Meiji storehouses. Taisho-era reception rooms, built with money made in silk and finished with the care that money allowed, are much rarer in the town.
Sakurai lies outside the roughly 17.6 hectares of the Makabe preservation district, selected in 2010. That boundary has no bearing on this building's standing. Registration operates independently of district selection.
What to look at
The most interesting thing about the Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing is that its finest room is upstairs. In Japanese houses the room of highest rank normally sits at the back of the ground floor. No record explains why a 12-mat formal room with alcove, shelves and writing bay was lifted to the first floor here. Makabe slopes gently west with the Tsukuba range behind it, and an upper floor opens the view. Whether that was the reason cannot be established.
Both roofs are hip-and-gable. Set against the plain Kirizuma-zukuri gables of the town's storehouses, the small extra planes at the ends soften the outline. Because the two ridges run at right angles to each other, there are positions from which the roofs read as two layers folded across one another.
The veranda around the western block is generous for two small rooms of 6 and 3 mats. A veranda opening onto a garden extends a room outward as surely as a wall encloses it. Even the bare numbers of the plan say what this building was for.
All of this, though, lies behind a wall. From the road you see a roof and a fragment of wall. Stand where the ridge of the two-storey block appears above the main house and the depth of the compound at least becomes tangible.
Visiting
The Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing is private property and the interior is not open. Because it sits deep in the compound, even the exterior is only partly visible from the road. Sakuragawa City asks visitors to view the town's registered buildings from outside and not to enter private grounds. There is no admission fee. Photograph from the public road only.
Iwase Station on the JR Mito Line is the usual approach: about 20 minutes by taxi, or about 40 minutes by local bus to the Shimojuku stop. From Tsukuba Station, take the Tsukuba City bus about 50 minutes to Tsukubasan-guchi and change to the Sakuragawa City bus for a further 20 minutes. Driving, allow about 20 minutes from the Sakuragawa-Chikusei interchange or about 50 minutes from Tsuchiura-kita via Route 125 and Prefectural Route 41.
The Makabe Takajomachi car park at 279-1 Makabe, Makabe-cho has room for 65 cars. It lies in the middle of the preservation district, so the walk north to Sakurai doubles as a tour of the old streets.
During the Makabe Hina Matsuri, from 4 February to 3 March each year, more than a hundred households and shops set out doll displays and open the rooms facing the street. Viewing is free. How much each family opens differs, and changes from year to year, so check current details with the Sakuragawa Tourism Association.
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Q&A
- When was the Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing built?
- During the Taisho era. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the period but no specific year.
- What is on the upper floor of the Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing?
- A single room of about 12 mats with an alcove, staggered shelves and a flat writing bay: a formal reception room in the shoin manner.
- Can I see inside the Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing?
- No. The interior is closed, and because the building sits at the back of the compound only parts of the roof and walls are visible from the road.
- When did the Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing become a Registered Tangible Cultural Property?
- On 12 July 2005, the same day as the main house and the stone, rear and grain storehouses.
- Where can I park near the Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing?
- The Makabe Takajomachi car park at 279-1 Makabe, Makabe-cho holds 65 cars. Sakurai is reached from there on foot.
Basic Information
| Name | Yaguchi Family Residence Detached Wing |
|---|---|
| Location | 373 Sakurai, Makabe-cho, Sakuragawa City, Ibaraki Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) |
| Year Designated | Registered 12 July 2005 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Building area 84 square metres |
| Owner | Private owner (no owner name recorded in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database) |
| Public Access | Not open to the public; exterior visible from the road |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: 谷口家住宅離れ
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004708
- Sakuragawa City: Makabe Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/education/bunkazai/city_bunkazai/kuni_bunkazai/page003423.html
- Ibaraki Prefectural Board of Education: Makabe Preservation District, Sakuragawa City
- https://kyoiku.pref.ibaraki.jp/bunkazai/bunkazai-8557/
- Sakuragawa City: Walking Makabe (registered cultural property map, PDF)
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/data/doc/1487569963_doc_23_1.pdf
Last verified: 2026.09.08