Hatta Family Residence Storehouse

The Former Kimono Storehouse

The Hatta Family Residence Storehouse (八田家住宅土蔵, Hatta-ke Jūtaku Dozō) is a two-storey storehouse in the middle of a merchant compound in Matsushiro, Nagano City, Nagano Prefecture; built around 1897, it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 26 December 2005. It faces south near the center of the Hatta property and was once known as the gofukuya dozō, the kimono-shop storehouse.

It is a Dozo-zukuri storehouse, 5 bays long (Ketayuki) and 2 and a half bays deep (Harima), with a footprint of 33 square metres. The ridge runs north to south under a gabled roof of Sangawara-buki pan tiles, and a small roof projects over the entrance on the south front. The walls are finished in white plaster, and the long east wall has two windows on each floor.

In 1982 the building was moved by hikiya, the technique of jacking a structure up and rolling it to a new site without dismantling it. Where it stands now is the result of that move.

Why It Matters

The Hatta Family Residence Storehouse was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as one of the components that make up the compound.

The old name is a clue to its past. In the Edo period the Hatta dealt in kimono cloth as well as sake, miso, soy sauce and lamp oil, and the name suggests a storehouse tied to the cloth trade. No published source, however, says exactly what was kept inside.

It is the smallest of the three registered storehouses, less than half the footprint of the Large Storehouse. With its white walls and entrance canopy, it shows the scale of the working stores that sat behind the house and kept the business running.

What to Look For

Because the ridge runs north to south, the triangular gable faces south. The entrance is on that gable end, with a canopy keeping rain off the doors.

On the long east wall, two windows sit on each floor, four in all, stacked in an orderly grid on a small building. That arrangement is the key to its exterior.

The white plaster sets it apart from the other two storehouses on the property: the unfinished clay of the Long Storehouse and the iron sheathing of the Large Storehouse. Three storehouses, three different skins, is one of the quieter pleasures of the Hatta compound.

Visiting

The Hatta Family Residence Storehouse stands in the middle of the grounds and is hard to see from the street. The interior and grounds are not open to the public (checked September 2026).

The property is private, so do not enter. Local events have sometimes used the garden as a venue, but whether this storehouse can be seen on those occasions varies.