Yoshimura Family Residence Zashiki-Gura

A White Storehouse in the Northwest Corner

Yoshimura Family Residence Zashiki-Gura (吉村家住宅座敷蔵, Yoshimura-ke Jūtaku Zashikigura) is a two-storey earthen-walled storehouse built in 1908 at the Yoshimura Family Residence in Kawashiri 4-chome, Minami-ku, Kumamoto City, and was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on August 6, 2025. It has a building area of 30 square meters.

The Yoshimura zashiki-gura stands in the northwest corner of the lot. A garden separates it from the main house, but a connecting corridor (watari-rōka) crosses the garden to join the two, so the family could reach the store from the back of the house.

A Zashiki-gura is literally a "parlor storehouse," yet the Agency for Cultural Affairs records this one's use as a store for household furnishings and belongings.

Fully Plastered Walls and a Stepped Fire Door

The roof is gabled and laid with pantiles. Every wall is finished in white Shikkui lime plaster, with a thickened Hachimaki band under the eaves. Along the base, a row of Mizukiri-gawara tiles sheds rainwater running down the walls away from the earthen core.

On the south side a Hisashi pent roof shelters a passage, and the entrance there is closed by a Kakegonuri door. Its edges and the frame of the opening are plastered in matching steps that lock together when the door shuts, narrowing the gaps through which fire or smoke could enter. The layout suggests a route from the garden corridor along this sheltered passage to the door.

Inside, each floor is a single room, and the roof is carried on Nobori-bari sloping beams.

One White and One Black Storehouse

The Yoshimura Family Residence Zashiki-Gura holds registration number 43-0209 and was registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the nation. The Agency values it as an earthen storehouse that helps form the look of a merchant family's compound.

In the northeast of the same lot stands the tool storehouse of 1869, finished in black plaster. Built about forty years later, the zashiki-gura is white, so the two storehouses at the back of the Yoshimura compound make a black-and-white pair.

Seeing the Yoshimura Zashiki-Gura

The Yoshimura Family Residence Zashiki-Gura stands deep within a private compound and is not open to the public. An interior photograph appears on the Agency's database page.

Because it sits in the far northwest corner, beyond the main house, it is unlikely to be visible from the street to the south. Visitors should stay off the grounds and view the compound from the public road.