Fureaikan Shirafuji: A Samurai Estate That Became a Town Clinic
Fureaikan Shirafuji (Former Maruta Clinic) (ふれあい館しらふじ（旧丸田医院）) is a walled compound in Suzaka City, Nagano Prefecture, built around 1875 for the Urano family of the former Suzaka domain; seven of its structures, including the main house, a Western-style clinic and a three-storey storehouse, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Property on September 19, 2003.
Along the street on the west side runs a Nagayamon gatehouse flanked by a roofed earthen wall, and at the northern end of that wall a tall plastered storehouse rises from a base of rounded stones. Inside, the main house faces south across a courtyard toward a Western-style consulting building added in 1910, with a former X-ray room closing the east side of the courtyard and a single-storey utility storehouse tucked into the northeast corner.
What makes Fureaikan Shirafuji worth knowing is the combination: the bones of a provincial samurai residence with a late Meiji doctor's surgery built into them. All seven registrations share one date, and Suzaka City owns the site. The name Shirafuji, white wisteria, comes from an old vine in the garden, according to the city education board's signboard.
The Urano Family Estate
Registration records from the Agency for Cultural Affairs name the builder of the main house as a member of the Urano family, who had served the Suzaka domain as finance commissioner. The main house, the storehouse, the utility storehouse, the gatehouse and the earthen wall all date to around 1875, only a few years after the domains were abolished. A former domain official was still laying out his household the way a samurai family would.
Suzaka City's guide to its historic streets places the estate at the western corner of the old domain residence, guarding that flank. It singles out the three-storey storehouse and the thickly plastered gatehouse, with their stern ridge-end tiles and heavy masonry of rounded boulders known locally as botamochi stonework, as some of the most arresting sights in the old town.
A closed street front, a tall storehouse on the corner, a main house with formal rooms at the back: the outer shell of Fureaikan Shirafuji still reads clearly as a regional samurai house of its time.
The Maruta Clinic Years
The doctor Maruta Kisuke changed the character of the place. According to Suzaka City's catalogue of the Maruta Clinic papers, he had run a practice called Kōho Clinic in the village of Hatchō before moving to lot 32 in Suzaka town around 1909 and opening a private clinic here.
The Western-style building of 1910 served as the consulting wing when the clinic opened, and the building between it and the main house was used as an X-ray room. A Japanese family house and a Western-looking surgery sharing one walled plot is exactly the arrangement the registration notes flag as useful for understanding how a small-town clinic of the period worked.
Kisuke's fourth son, Shizuo, took over the practice, and father and son looked after Suzaka's patients through the Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras. The family later donated the clinic's business records, medical books and photographs to Suzaka City.
Community Hall to Rental Inn
The property later passed to Suzaka City, which restored the main house, storehouse and former clinic and opened them as Fureaikan Shirafuji, a community hall, on April 15, 2002. The registrations followed the next year.
In 2019 the city invited private operators to propose a new use. A proposal by a Nagano City architecture firm and a group of local residents was chosen, the renovation was completed in August 2021, and the main house and Western-style building now operate together as Shirafuji, a rental inn that takes a single party per night.
The architects say they placed a garden between each of the buildings and set out to catch light arriving at different angles. The registered name is still Fureaikan Shirafuji, but the inn's own website and booking sites use the inn's name, Shirafuji.
Seeing the Estate From the Street
Fureaikan Shirafuji faces west. The earthen wall runs out on either side of the gatehouse; to the north it meets the storehouse, and to the south it turns in a U shape around the southwest corner of the gate. On the northern street, the board-clad base of the utility storehouse continues the line of the wall.
Four of the seven registered structures, the gatehouse, the earthen wall, the storehouse and the utility storehouse, can be seen from the public road. Stand at the northwest corner and you take in the stone base, the double drip ledges on the storehouse's white walls and its deep eaves in a single view.
The main house, the Western-style building and the former X-ray room sit inside the wall and are barely visible from outside. Each structure has its own page with details of construction and what to look for.
Visiting and Getting There
Fureaikan Shirafuji is now an inn, and during a stay the entire compound is reserved for one party. There is no general admission; only overnight guests go inside the wall. Check-in is 3:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and check-out is at noon. Reservations are taken through the inn's website and booking sites.
By train, take the Nagano Electric Railway (Nagaden) Nagano Line to Suzaka Station; the inn collects guests at the station. By car, leave the Joshin-etsu Expressway at Suzaka-Nagano-Higashi Interchange; the inn puts the drive at about 15 minutes. Parking for guests is inside the compound.
Looking at the exterior requires no booking. No official rule on photography is published, but people are staying here, so avoid peering in through the gate.
References
- Cultural Heritage Database (Agency for Cultural Affairs): Main House
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00003537
- Cultural Heritage Database (Agency for Cultural Affairs): Western-Style Building
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00003538
- Cultural Heritage Database (Agency for Cultural Affairs): Storage Shed
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00003539
- Cultural Heritage Database (Agency for Cultural Affairs): Storehouse
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00003540
- Cultural Heritage Database (Agency for Cultural Affairs): Utility Storehouse
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00003541
- Cultural Heritage Database (Agency for Cultural Affairs): Nagayamon Gate
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00003542
- Cultural Heritage Database (Agency for Cultural Affairs): Tsuiji Wall
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00003543
- Suzaka City: Modern Industrial Heritage, Shinshu Suzaka Storehouse Streets (Vol. 1, revised)
- https://www.city.suzaka.nagano.jp/material/files/group/17/machinami01.pdf
- Suzaka City: Catalogue of the Former Maruta Clinic Papers
- https://www.city.suzaka.nagano.jp/material/files/group/13/shiryomokuroku_045.pdf
- Shirafuji, Shinshu Suzaka (official site)
- https://shirafuji-suzaka.jp/en
- Shirafuji: Access
- https://shirafuji-suzaka.jp/access/
- to be architect: Shirafuji Rental Inn
- https://tobearchitect.com/design/achievement/23
Last verified: 2026.09.26
Basic Information
| Name | Fureaikan Shirafuji (Former Maruta Clinic) |
|---|---|
| Location | 32-1 Oaza Suzaka, Suzaka City, Nagano Prefecture |
| Owner | Suzaka City |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (7) |
| Coordinates | 36.65374, 138.31434 |
