Zorokuen Main House (Kitamae Ship Owner's Residence, Former Sakaya Choichiro Family Residence)

What the Zorokuen Main House is

Zorokuen Main House is a two-storey timber residence in Hashitatemachi, Kaga City, Ishikawa Prefecture, built about 1870 and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 17 February 1999.

It covers 369 square metres. Standing at the centre of the grounds, Zorokuen Main House shows its broad gable end through the trees, with a detached reception room and a retirement room attached at the rear. The core of the plan follows the traditional layout of the district without alteration.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs database records that the house is traditionally held to have been built for Sakaya Soshichiro, a Kitamae-bune ship owner. How that name relates to the Sakaya Choichiro family of the registered title is not explained in any primary source consulted here. The family kept a base in Hakodate in Hokkaido and worked the Japan Sea route to Osaka.

Why it was registered

The criterion applied was that the building would be difficult to reproduce. Of the 11 entries registered on this estate, Zorokuen Main House is the only one listed on those grounds; the other ten were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape.

The point is that the same drawings would not produce the same house today. The great room, the oe, is finished in red lacquer, and pine and zelkova of high grade run through the rooms. Timber of that quality could be gathered only by a shipping family with money to spend, and it needed craftsmen able to work it.

What to look at

From the street the gable end comes first. Main houses in Kaga Hashitate are entered at the gable, in the Tsumairi manner, and their outer walls carry vertical boards reused from ship hulls as protection against the salt wind off the Japan Sea. Zorokuen Main House sits on that same alignment, its wide gable visible between the trees.

Inside, the mood changes. The reception rooms are lacquered and open toward the garden, where stones brought in by ship from around the country are set out. The rooms were arranged so that the stone composition reads as a picture from deep inside the house, which is a good reason not to look at the building and the garden separately.

Visiting the Main House

Zorokuen Main House is the centre of the public opening. Visitors can see the reception rooms and the garden, and there is a place to take matcha or coffee while looking out over the planting.

How far into the house visitors may go varies from day to day, so it is worth asking in advance, along with whether photography is allowed. Opening hours, admission and the route from Kaga Onsen Station are set out on the Zorokuen estate page.