What the Yaguchi Family Residence Main House is
The Yaguchi Family Residence Main House is an early Meiji dwelling 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 08-0192.
The Yaguchi family (谷口家, read Yaguchi rather than the more common Taniguchi) has held land here since the early Edo period. Its heads served as village headmen, and by the closing decades of the Edo period the household was pressing oil and brewing soy sauce. In the Meiji era it moved into silk reeling and built up one of the larger filatures in Ibaraki. Most of the surviving buildings date from that shift.
The Yaguchi Family Residence Main House sits behind the shop that fronts the north-south street. It is a long east-west block roofed in the Yosemune-zukuri hipped form with Sangawara-buki pantiles, entered on the long side in the Hirairi manner, and carries a low Tsushi-nikai half storey. The building area is 178 square metres. A 10-mat Zashiki reception room extends from the eastern end under its own hipped roof.
Inside, the western end nearest the shop is an earth-floored Doma. The raised floor beyond holds four 8-mat rooms arranged in a square, the plan Japanese carpenters call the rice-field pattern after the character 田. The Agency for Cultural Affairs record rates both the materials and the joinery as high quality.
Why it is registered
The Yaguchi Family Residence Main House was registered under the criterion covering buildings that contribute to the historic landscape of the country. That criterion looks past the individual facade to what a building does for the street it stands on. Here the shop, the flanking storehouses, the gate and the house behind them survive as one unbroken arrangement, and it is the arrangement that carries the value.
Makabe began using the registration system in 1999, and more than a hundred buildings in the town were listed within a few years. The nine Yaguchi buildings came in two batches, in 2000 and in 2005. The main house belongs to the later one.
One detail is worth reading carefully. The commentary attached to the shop, registered first, describes the main house joined to its rear as late Edo work. The registration record for the house itself gives early Meiji. The two entries in the national database do not agree, so the construction date is best held as a range rather than a fixed point.
Makabe's Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings covers about 17.6 hectares of the Makabe district proper and was selected in 2010. Sakurai lies immediately north of that boundary and falls outside it. The Yaguchi compound therefore preserves the industrial-era face of Makabe from beyond the edge of the protected zone.
What to look at
The first thing to register about the Yaguchi Family Residence Main House is how low the upper floor sits. A Tsushi-nikai is a half storey without full ceiling height, used for storage or silkworm rearing rather than living. The gap between the eaves of the ground floor and the roof above looks compressed because of it, and the effect is nothing like the tall two-storey townhouses that spread through Makabe from the late Meiji years onward.
The roof is hipped. Since the Kirizuma-zukuri gabled shop-storehouse dominates the streets of central Makabe, four sloping planes read as a quiet exception. Step back a few paces on the road and you can follow the pantiles as they run east and pick up the roof of the reception room.
The square four-room plan is invisible from outside. It still repays imagining. Trace the route from the L-shaped earth floor of the shop through into the earth floor of the house, and the division between the place of business and the place of living resolves into something you can walk in your head. In this compound the rear wall of the shop opens directly into the dwelling, so a customer at the street counter and a kitchen at the back stood on what was effectively one continuous floor.
Come on a winter afternoon if you can. The wind off the Tsukuba range is dry then, the glaze on the pantiles throws hard light, and the ridge lines come out sharply.
Visiting
The Yaguchi Family Residence Main House is a private home and the interior is closed. Sakuragawa City asks visitors to view the town's registered properties from outside only and not to enter private grounds. There is no admission charge because there is nothing to enter. Photography from the public road is fine; avoid framing residents, vehicles or anything through a window.
Iwase Station on the JR Mito Line is the practical rail gateway. A taxi from the station takes about 20 minutes, a local bus about 40 minutes to the Shimojuku stop. From Tsukuba Station, take the Tsukuba City bus about 50 minutes to Tsukubasan-guchi, then the Sakuragawa City bus about 20 minutes. By car it is roughly 20 minutes from the Sakuragawa-Chikusei interchange on the Kita-Kanto Expressway, or about 50 minutes from the Tsuchiura-kita interchange via Route 125 and Prefectural Route 41.
The Makabe Takajomachi car park at 279-1 Makabe, Makabe-cho holds 65 cars. It sits in the middle of the preservation district, so reaching Sakurai means walking north through the old streets, which is the sensible way to see the town in any case.
Every year from 4 February to 3 March the Makabe Hina Matsuri fills the town: more than a hundred houses and shops set out doll displays and open their street-facing rooms. Admission is free. Which households take part changes from year to year, so check with the Sakuragawa Tourism Association about the Sakurai end of town. Some days bring traffic restrictions in the centre.
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Q&A
- Can I go inside the Yaguchi Family Residence Main House?
- No. It remains a private residence and no interior opening has been announced. Viewing is from the public road only.
- When was the Yaguchi Family Residence Main House built?
- The national register gives the early Meiji era. The commentary for the adjoining shop, registered earlier, calls the house late Edo work, so the date is best treated as a range.
- Under what system is the Yaguchi Family Residence Main House protected?
- It is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property. Registration proceeds by notification from the owner, and it is framed so that a building can stay lived in as long as its outward appearance is not greatly altered.
- How do I reach the Yaguchi Family Residence Main House by public transport?
- Iwase Station on the JR Mito Line is the nearest railway station: about 20 minutes by taxi, or about 40 minutes by local bus to the Shimojuku stop. Makabe itself has no station.
- Is the Yaguchi Family Residence Main House inside the Makabe preservation district?
- No. The district covers part of the Makabe district proper. Sakurai, where the house stands, lies just outside the northern boundary.
Basic Information
| Name | Yaguchi Family Residence Main House |
|---|---|
| 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 178 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: 谷口家住宅主屋
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004707
- 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
- Sakuragawa City: The Townscape of Makabe
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/tourism_guide/learn/page000455.html
- 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