Imai Family Residence (Imai Okoyasumi Honjin) Rice Storehouse

What the Rice Storehouse Is

Imai Family Residence (Imai Okoyasumi Honjin) Rice Storehouse stands north-west of the main house at Imai in Okaya City, Nagano Prefecture, was built in 1789, and became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 14 October 1999.

It is a two-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse of 33 square metres, set immediately north of the document storehouse. A pair of earthen doors opens on the east front, rain boards protect the lower walls, and a window is set on the upper floor of the south gable end. The gabled roof is raised clear of the plastered shell and laid with teppeiseki, a stone that splits into flat plates.

The date comes from a prayer tablet placed in the frame during construction, a common practice that recorded the year and the patron. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the era year as Kansei 1 but prints 1879 in its western-calendar column; Kansei 1 is 1789, while 1879 falls in the Meiji era. Since the same record assigns the building to the Edo period, this article follows 1789.

Why It Was Registered

Imai Family Residence (Imai Okoyasumi Honjin) Rice Storehouse was listed under the criterion for works that cannot easily be recreated. Only three of the eleven buildings on the estate carry that ground: the main house, the document storehouse and this one.

For a household serving as village headmen, the rice store sat at the centre of the family's business. Where a house handled the collection of tax rice and lending against it, the capacity of the store and its resistance to fire were matters of standing. The documented date of 1789 adds to the value of the building.

What to Look For

The clearest way to read this building is beside its neighbour. Imai Family Residence (Imai Okoyasumi Honjin) Rice Storehouse and the document storehouse share a footprint of 33 square metres, two storeys, plastered walls and a raised stone roof, yet more than seventy years separate them.

The difference shows in the windows. The document storehouse has openings on both floors of its south gable; this one has a window on the upper floor only. Leaving the ground floor blind suits a room stacked with straw bales from wall to wall.

Look at the line of earthen doors on the east side. Both storehouses face the main house, keeping the walk from house to store, and from store to cart, as short as the site allows.

Visiting

Imai Family Residence (Imai Okoyasumi Honjin) Rice Storehouse stands north-west of the main house, beyond the document storehouse. Seen from the old Nakasendo it lies behind the house, so little more than the roof is visible from the road.

The estate is a private home and neither the interiors nor the grounds are open. Look from the road and photograph from there. The cultural properties staff of the Okaya City Board of Education can answer questions about access. (Checked in September 2026.)