Fureaikan Shirafuji (Former Maruta Clinic) Main House

What Is the Fureaikan Shirafuji (Former Maruta Clinic) Main House?

The Fureaikan Shirafuji (Former Maruta Clinic) Main House (ふれあい館しらふじ（旧丸田医院）主屋) is a two-storey wooden residence in Suzaka City, Nagano Prefecture, built in 1875 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on September 19, 2003.

It stands toward the north of the Shirafuji compound, its long side turned south to the courtyard garden. The roof is a gabled Kirizuma-zukuri form laid with sangawara tiles, and the entrance is on the eaves side, the arrangement called Hirairi. The footprint is 163 square metres. It was built by the Urano family, who had served the Suzaka domain as finance commissioners; after the physician Maruta Kisuke moved here around 1909 it became the family home behind his practice.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the house to 1875, while the inn that now uses it gives 1876. Either way, this is a home put up in the first years of the Meiji era, just after the domains were abolished.

Why It Was Registered: A Samurai-Style Parlour

The registration criterion is that the building serves as a model of architectural form. The agency's note points to the formal rooms, fitted with a Tokonoma alcove and a Tsukeshoin writing bay, as carrying the conventions of a provincial samurai house.

This was the house of a former domain official, not a merchant, and the parlour where guests were received follows samurai practice. That is what sets the Fureaikan Shirafuji Main House apart. The room with the shoin bay is now the inn's main bedroom.

What to Look For

Start with the west gable, the wall that faces the street. Here alone the posts disappear under a smooth coat of Shikkui plaster, a technique called ōkabe; the other walls use Shinkabe, with timber posts left visible between plaster panels. The face turned toward town is the best dressed.

Inside, the heart of the house is the parlour with its alcove and shoin bay. The inn lists 113.54 square metres of guest space: the parlour as a bedroom, a sofa room looking onto the garden, a dining room and a kitchen. A stone washbasin, or tsukubai, sits in the garden.

Across the courtyard stands the Western-style clinic building, joined to the main house by a corridor under the Geya lean-to of the former X-ray room. A samurai-era home linked by one passage to a late Meiji surgery is the signature of the whole estate.

Visiting the Main House

The Fureaikan Shirafuji Main House is now part of Shirafuji, a rental inn that takes one party a night, so only overnight guests go inside. It sits behind the gatehouse and earthen wall, and little more than part of its roof shows from the street.

Guests see the parlour and garden at close range during their stay; the inn sets a limit of two people for the main house. No photography rule is published, so ask the inn. Directions and booking terms are covered on the Fureaikan Shirafuji page.