Higashi Brewery Shop and Main House

Higashi Brewery Shop and Main House: Rebuilt in the Year of the Fire

The Higashi Brewery Shop and Main House (東酒造場店舗兼主屋, Higashi Shuzōjō Tenpo-ken-shuoku) is a combined shop and family residence built in 1936 at the Higashi sake brewery in Noda-machi, Komatsu City, Ishikawa Prefecture, and it was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on January 8, 2009. The house was remodeled around 1982.

It stands a little north of the center of the lot and faces east. Built of wood, it has 2 storeys with a single-storey section and a building area of 232 square meters, the largest of the 12 registered buildings. Its registration number, 17-0193, heads the list.

The brewery says a fire in 1936 destroyed almost the whole compound except the West Storehouse. The main house went back up within the same year, roughly a decade before the brewing buildings were replaced in stone.

Why It Was Registered: A Traditional Plan with a Modern Face

The house was entered on the register under the criterion for buildings that serve as a model of design. The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to the way it keeps a traditional floor plan while the exterior and layout reflect a modern sensibility.

The south half of the front is an earthen-floored Doma. North of it lies the oi, the name used in Hokuriku homes for the room at the center of family life. Behind these, 4 rooms are set in a two-by-two grid, the arrangement Japanese builders call ta-no-ji after the character 田, and carved transoms, or Ranma, fill the openings between them.

That skeleton is an old one. What changes the character is the front: a tall 2-storey block under a broad hip-and-gable roof, giving the shop the confident presence of a prewar merchant house.

What to Look For at the Higashi Brewery Shop and Main House

Start with the roofs. The front block is built in the Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable form with a pantile covering, and behind it a single-storey wing, also hip-and-gable, runs at a right angle. The taller front faced customers; the lower rear wing carries the household deeper into the site.

Inside, the carved ranma are the detail worth seeking out. The Agency singles them out even in its very short description, and they mark the formal rooms of the house.

The building did exactly what its name says, with trade at the front and family life behind. The brewery has recently added a tour course that uses the registered main house and its Japanese garden, and has opened a lounge called Kai.

Seeing the Higashi Brewery Shop and Main House

The Higashi Brewery Shop and Main House faces the Main Gate, so its east front is the first thing you see once inside the compound. It belongs to the company, and the interior can be entered only as part of a tour arranged with the brewery.

When booking, ask about the course that includes the main house and garden, and whether photography is allowed indoors. Directions and booking details are gathered on the Higashi Brewery page.