Imai Family Residence (Imai Okoyasumi Honjin) Lumber Storehouse

What the Lumber Storehouse Is

Imai Family Residence (Imai Okoyasumi Honjin) Lumber Storehouse stands north-west of the main house at Imai in Okaya City, Nagano Prefecture, facing east beyond the rice storehouse; it is early Meiji work and became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 14 October 1999.

What it held was construction timber for the household's own building work. At 46 square metres it has the largest floor area of any store on the estate. The frame is two storeys in Shinkabe construction, with the posts left visible, under a plain gabled roof of sheet iron.

Openings two bays wide sit at the centre of the front on each floor, and an open-sided canopy runs along the facade, formed by carrying the main roof down over it. Timber had to be shouldered in and out, so the doors are wide and there is a dry place to work in front of them.

Why It Was Registered

Imai Family Residence (Imai Okoyasumi Honjin) Lumber Storehouse was listed as contributing to the historic landscape of the country, a different ground from the one applied to the document and rice storehouses, which were valued for their construction and their documented dates.

The difference in grounds matches a difference in building. Where the plastered storehouses were built up thickly to keep fire out, this one shows its posts and settles for a sheet-iron roof. When the contents are timber, rain and ease of handling matter more than fire. Two answers to two problems stand side by side on one estate.

What to Look For

Start with the paired openings. The two-bay doors on the ground floor and the upper floor sit one above the other, so the front reads as a stacked pair of mouths. The upper opening existed to take material straight up.

Then look at the canopy. It has a roof but no walls, made by extending the main roof downward, and it gave a covered place to lay timber out and check it before carrying it inside.

The 46 square metres of Imai Family Residence (Imai Okoyasumi Honjin) Lumber Storehouse make it the largest store here. Set against the 33 square metres of the document and rice storehouses, the figure says plainly what kind of goods this building was built to swallow.

Visiting

Imai Family Residence (Imai Okoyasumi Honjin) Lumber Storehouse lies towards the north of the grounds, beyond the rice storehouse. From the old Nakasendo it sits behind both the main house and the storehouses in front of it, so very little can be seen from the road.

The estate is a private residence; the grounds cannot be entered and the interiors are closed. Photograph from the road. Questions about access go to the cultural properties staff of the Okaya City Board of Education. (Checked in September 2026.)