Fujisaki Family Residence (Sekishokan)

A Landowner's Compound on the Tanoura Coast

The Fujisaki Family Residence (Sekishokan) is the estate of a landowning family in Tanoura, Ashikita Town, Kumamoto Prefecture, built around 1894, and nine of its structures were listed as Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 18 October 2000.

In Japanese the house is 藤崎家住宅（赤松館）, and the second name trips up almost everyone. The characters 赤松館 would normally be read Akamatsu-kan, but the family, the town and the national database all read them Sekishōkan. Ask for directions using that name.

The Fujisaki served as shōya, hereditary village headmen, from the late Edo period and grew into major landholders; the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the main house simply as the residence of a great landowner. The builder is usually named as Fujisaki Yaichiro, the fifth head of the family. His daughter, Egami Tomi, was born here and went on to become one of Japan's pioneering cookery teachers.

Two dates circulate for the house. The national register gives 1894 for the main house and "around 1894" for the gates and wall; local newspapers and the people who have run the house for visitors usually say 1893. The same local accounts say the house was meant partly for entertaining guests, and that work stopped when the Sino-Japanese War broke out, leaving the upper floor of the main house without its interior finish. This site follows the register's dates.

How the Estate Fits Together

Read the official descriptions side by side and the plan of the Fujisaki Family Residence (Sekishokan) falls into place. The main house sits at the center, holding reception rooms, living rooms, the kitchen and a separate cooking range under one sprawling roof. A tiled board fence 161 metres long runs around it.

Along the front, the fence rises a step higher. White plaster over a skirt of clapboard runs for about 30 metres, with the stone front gate set into it. At the southwest corner the miso storehouse turns its gable to the street; the small row house stands just east of it, and the central gate, the everyday entrance that leads to the earthen-floored kitchen, comes next. Together these four pieces make the face the house shows the road.

Walk around to the west side and the pattern continues. Behind the miso storehouse opens the lower gate, a service entrance to the work yard beside the kitchen, and north of it the long basket shed forms part of the boundary, its outer wall continuous with the fence.

Only the rice storehouse sits outside the enclosure. The fence skirts it and the vegetable plot in front of it, and the storehouse itself was moved to this spot in 1930. A garden with a pond fills part of the grounds.

Open, Closed, Open Again

The estate began receiving visitors after its listing in 2000, though accounts differ on when: the Ashikita Town Tourism Association dates public opening to 2009, while a local newspaper feature ties it to the year of registration.

Damage from the Kumamoto earthquakes of 2016 and later heavy rains shut the house for years. It reopened on 2 March 2024. According to the Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun, Shimazaki Junko, a Kumamoto City resident who had worked on earthquake recovery, took the house over from the Fujisaki family and formed a preservation society with a handful of volunteers to run it. After reopening it kept weekend and holiday hours, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with admission reported at 500 yen at the time, and the upper floor of the main house became a display space for family belongings.

After the 2026 Earthquake

On 28 July 2026 the Reiwa 8 Kumamoto Earthquake shook Ashikita Town at an intensity of shindo 6-lower on the Japanese scale. On 5 August the Ashikita Town Tourism Association reported that the Fujisaki Family Residence (Sekishokan) had suffered severe damage and could no longer carry on operating. A second notice on 19 August still listed it as a damaged site.

Published sources do not say which buildings were hurt or how badly. As of September 2026 no reopening notice could be found. Before making the trip, check the current situation with the Ashikita Town Tourism Association (0966-82-2511) or the house itself (0966-87-0001).

While it is closed, nothing inside the gates can be visited. Keep to the lanes outside the property if you stop to look, and take photographs only from there; no published rule on photography could be found.

Getting There

The estate lies in Tanoura, a village on the Yatsushiro Sea in the north of Ashikita Town. Tourist listings usually give the address as 788 Tanoura. By car, the nearest exit is Tanoura Interchange on the Minamikyushu-Nishimawari Expressway, and after the 2024 reopening the ground beside the rice storehouse served as the car park.

The Hisatsu Orange Railway follows the coast, but it too was damaged in the 2026 earthquake. In late September 2026, the stretch between Yatsushiro and Higo-Tanoura stations was still covered by replacement buses, so check the timetable before travelling by rail.

The Nine Listed Structures

Nine structures carry registration numbers 43-0036 through 43-0044.

• Main House: 1894, timber, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 769 square metres
• Miso Storehouse: 1894, earthen-walled storehouse, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 61 square metres
• Row House: 1894, timber, single storey, tiled roof, building area 12 square metres
• Basket Shed: early Showa era, timber, single storey, tiled roof, building area 41 square metres
• Rice Storehouse: Meiji era, moved here in 1930, earthen-walled, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 247 square metres
• Front Gate: around 1894, stone, opening 5.8 metres wide, wooden doors and side walls
• Central Gate: around 1894, timber, tiled roof, opening 1.9 metres wide, wooden doors and 15 metres of fence to the east
• Lower Gate: around 1894, timber, tiled roof, opening 2.3 metres wide, wooden door
• Wall: around 1894, timber, tiled roof, 161 metres long

The main house and the rice storehouse were registered as structures that would be difficult to reproduce. The other seven were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape.

Names and Spellings

The national database lists the Fujisaki Family Residence (Sekishokan) one structure at a time, joining the estate name to each building name, as in 藤崎家住宅（赤松館）主屋 for the main house. The full reading is Fujisaki-ke jūtaku (Sekishōkan). Locally the estate is simply Sekishokan, and two addresses are in use: the registered parcel, 781-2 and others, Gotanda, Tanoura, and the visitor address, 788 Tanoura.