The Oldest Thing on the Hill
The inner storehouse of the former Kawamoto Residence (旧川本家住宅内蔵, Kyū-Kawamoto-ke Jūtaku Uchigura) is a two-storey earthen-walled storehouse of 1899 in Nishitobe-chō, Nishi Ward, Yokohama, relocated within its plot in 1933 and entered in Japan's national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 15 August 2024.
Three buildings on this hillside plot were registered together in 2024. Two of them date from 1933. This one does not, and that gap of thirty-four years is the whole point of it.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the storehouse to Meiji 32, the year 1899, and records that it was moved in 1933. Its assessment notes plainly that the building existed before the tunnel excavation. When the Keihin Electric Railway drove its bore through the ridge and the family's main house was rebuilt, the storehouse was not swept away with the old arrangement. Someone took it apart, or jacked it, and set it down again against the northwest corner of the new house.
A coincidence sits inside that date. In January 1899 the Daishi Electric Railway ran its first car between Rokugōbashi and Kawasaki Daishi, seventeen employees and about two kilometres of single track. That company became the Keihin Electric Railway, and eventually Keikyu Corporation, which today owns this storehouse. Building and owner are the same age, and neither knew about the other for the first three decades.
How a Kazai-gura Is Made
The building is a kazai-gura, a storehouse for household goods and valuables rather than for rice or merchandise. In a Japanese house, the gura carried what mattered when a fire came through: documents, textiles, lacquer, the objects brought out for particular seasons. Its walls are thick and earthen for exactly that reason, and its openings are few.
Here the ridge runs north to south, and the gable end faces the entrance, a configuration Japanese carpentry calls kirizuma-zukuri tsuma-iri. The roof is laid in sangawara pantiles. The outer walls are finished in shikkui lime plaster, and a raised plaster band, a hachimaki or headband, runs around the building beneath the eaves. Two windows open in the north face. The small brackets that carry the eave hood have been given kurikata, a shaped moulding, which is more attention than a purely utilitarian storehouse requires.
Inside, each of the two floors is a single boarded room. The building area is 17 square metres.
That figure deserves a moment. The main house alongside it covers 231 square metres. The storehouse occupies roughly one-fourteenth of that footprint, about the size of a modest bedroom, stacked twice. Small buildings rarely survive registration reviews on their own merits, and this one did.
The criterion applied was the third of the three available: contribution to the historic landscape of the country (国土の歴史的景観に寄与しているもの). The front gate and stone walls came in under the same heading, while the main house was registered under the first criterion, as a model of design. The Agency's summary explains the storehouse's case in one line: heavy in appearance, yet in good accord with the main house. A thing built in one century was made to sit convincingly beside a thing built in the next.
What Can Be Seen
The former Kawamoto Residence is closed to the public. The property stands vacant under the ownership and management of Keikyu Corporation, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs recorded at registration that a policy for local use was being considered. Nothing has been announced since, and there are no visiting hours, no admission fee and no access to the grounds.
The storehouse is also the hardest of the three registered elements to see. It stands attached to the northwest of the main house, on the far side from the lane, and the documented view in the national database is taken from the west. Visitors on the public road below will make out the gate and the long stone retaining wall more readily than the gura behind them.
The database holds a second photograph worth knowing about: the koyagumi, the roof framing, shot from inside the upper floor. Storehouse roof structures are ordinarily invisible, sealed behind the earthen shell, and images of them are uncommon in public records.
Getting to the neighbourhood takes about ten minutes uphill from Tobe Station on the Keikyu Main Line, or a similar walk from Hinodechō Station on the other side of the ridge. Photography from the public road is fine; the surrounding lanes are narrow and residential, and the houses around are lived in.
Anyone drawn to storehouse architecture will find better opportunities elsewhere in the region, at the preserved merchant quarters where gura stand open. What the Kawamoto storehouse offers is different and harder to find: a small Meiji building that was worth the trouble of moving when everything around it changed.
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Q&A
- Can the former Kawamoto Residence inner storehouse be visited?
- No. The whole property is closed, vacant and privately owned by Keikyu Corporation, with no opening hours or admission arrangements. The storehouse stands behind the main house and is difficult to see even from the public lanes. A plan for community use of the site was under consideration as of 2024.
- How old is the former Kawamoto Residence inner storehouse, and was it moved?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to Meiji 32, or 1899, and records a relocation in 1933. It predates the railway tunnel excavation that prompted the rebuilding of the main house, making it the oldest surviving structure on the plot by thirty-four years.
- What kind of storehouse is the former Kawamoto Residence inner storehouse?
- It is a kazai-gura, built to hold household goods and valuables. The structure is dozō-zukuri, two storeys with earthen walls finished in shikkui lime plaster, gabled with the entrance on the gable end, roofed in sangawara pantiles, with the ridge running north to south. Each floor holds a single boarded room, and the building area is 17 square metres.
- Why was the former Kawamoto Residence inner storehouse registered as a cultural property?
- It was registered on 15 August 2024 under registration number 14-0349, on the criterion of contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The official assessment describes it as heavy in appearance yet in good accord with the main house, and notes that it existed before the tunnel excavation. Detailing such as the moulded brackets under the eave hood shows care beyond the merely functional.
- Where exactly is the former Kawamoto Residence inner storehouse?
- At 1-13 Nishitobe-chō, Nishi Ward, Yokohama, on a hillside about ten minutes on foot uphill from Tobe Station on the Keikyu Main Line. It is attached to the northwest of the main house on the same plot. Nogeyama Park lies a few hundred metres away.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Kawamoto Residence Inner Storehouse (旧川本家住宅内蔵, Kyū-Kawamoto-ke Jūtaku Uchigura) |
|---|---|
| Location | 1-13 Nishitobe-chō, Nishi Ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure); registration number 14-0349; criterion: contribution to the historic landscape of the country |
| Year Designated | Registered and announced 15 August 2024 (107th registration round); recommended by the Council for Cultural Affairs on 15 March 2024 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Dozō construction, two storeys, tiled roof; building area 17 m²; dated 1899, relocated 1933 |
| Owner | Keikyu Corporation |
| Public Access | Closed. Vacant property; the storehouse stands behind the main house and is barely visible from public roads. |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Kyū-Kawamoto-ke Jūtaku Uchigura
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00015004
- Cultural Heritage Online: Kyū-Kawamoto-ke Jūtaku Uchigura
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/593602
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Council recommendation document of 15 March 2024 (PDF)
- https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkazai/shokai/yukei_kenzobutsu/pdf/94080301_03.pdf
- City of Yokohama press release, 15 March 2024: Recommendation on Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (Structures)
- https://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/city-info/koho-kocho/press/kyoiku/2023/bunkatouroku202403.html
- Keikyu Corporation, corporate history: the founding period
- https://www.keikyu.co.jp/history/chronology01.html
Last verified: 2026.08.04