The Gate with the Cedar Ball
The Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery and Takeshige Family Residence Gate Row House (武重本家酒造及び武重家住宅門長屋) is the late-Edo gate building of a working sake brewery on the old Nakasendō road in Motai, Saku City, Nagano Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 26 September 2000. It is a single-storey timber building under a tiled roof with a floor area of 24 square metres, dated by the Agency for Cultural Affairs to between 1751 and 1829.
It adjoins the east storehouse on that building's western side, and the shop continues beyond it to the west. Built in the manner of a Nagayamon, a gate set into a row house, it measures five and a half bays by two, about 10 metres by 3.6 metres, with an east-west ridge under a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles, entered on the long side. The two and a half bays nearest the east storehouse form the gate. On the south face, toward the road, the lower wall is clapboard held by battens, the upper wall is Shinkabe plaster with exposed framing, and lattice windows sit between.
Through the gate lies the approach area bounded by the gate house, the east storehouse, the entrance of the main house and the passage to the brewing yard. The Takeshige began brewing in 1868 under the twelfth head of the family, Tokuzaemon; the gate is older, and was the family's gate before there was a brewery behind it.
Why It Is Listed
The register lists the gate house under the criterion of contributing to the nation's historic landscape. The Agency's commentary notes the clapboard, the plastered upper wall and the lattice windows that compose its front, and counts it with the east storehouse, the shop and the west storehouse among the elements that create the streetscape of the old Nakasendō.
Beneath its eaves hangs a sugidama, a ball of cedar foliage that a brewery hangs out to announce that the new sake is ready. A head-on photograph of the Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery and Takeshige Family Residence Gate Row House with its cedar ball has served again and again as the image of the old Nakasendō. In front of the gate stands a stone inscribed with three poems by Wakayama Bokusui, the wandering poet of sake and travel.
The gate house is small, 24 square metres, squeezed between the east storehouse and the shop. Yet when people picture Motai, this gate is what most of them remember. A building's contribution to a landscape is decided not by its size but by where the eye comes to rest.
What to Look For
Stand on the old Nakasendō and face the gate. The two and a half bays to the east are the opening; the three bays to the west are the row house. The cedar ball hangs from the eave above the gate, flanked by white plastered panels and lattice windows, with the dark clapboard running beneath. The south face of the Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery and Takeshige Family Residence Gate Row House is composed of three tones: white, dark board and wooden grille.
Look at the colour of the cedar ball. Hung fresh when the new sake is pressed, it is green; over the months it turns brown. Its colour is the brewing calendar made visible.
To the right of the gate, on the east, the east storehouse stands at the corner of the water channel; to the left the shop runs on for twelve bays. Let your gaze spread east and west from the gate and it becomes clear that this small building is the hinge of the whole street front. At the poem stone you can read the verse Bokusui wrote in praise of the house's Misonotake sake on his visit of 1925.
Visiting and Getting There
The Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery and Takeshige Family Residence Gate Row House faces the old Nakasendō and can be seen head-on from the road, with the Wakayama Bokusui poem stone in front of it. During shop hours, weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., visitors may pass through the gate to buy sake. The gate house itself is not open for interior tours.
The Takeshige compound is both residence and brewery, and its interiors are not open as a rule. Visitors may enter the grounds to buy sake at the office and shop on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; the brewery is closed on weekends, national holidays, at New Year and during the old-calendar Bon holiday. The cellars, including the fermentation storehouses, open once a year around the spring equinox (usually 20 or 21 March) for tours and tastings, and for the 2026 open day a chartered bus was provided from Sakudaira Station. Reservation-only tastings held in a renovated cellar sometimes include a guided walk, so check the official site for dates.
To get there, ride the Hokuriku Shinkansen to Sakudaira, then a Chikuma Bus toward Mochizuki and Ashida to the Motai-iriguchi stop, about two minutes' walk from the gate. Because the bus operates on weekdays only, weekend visitors should budget about 30 minutes and 15 kilometres by taxi or car from Sakudaira. The Saku and Yunomaru interchanges on the Joshin-etsu Expressway are each about 30 minutes away. Taking photographs from the old Nakasendō is fine; inside the compound, follow staff instructions during open events.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Nagano
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery and Takeshige Family Residence Gate Row House
- [ Matsumoto Castle & Kamikochi Hiking Tours ]
Q&A
- When was the Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery and Takeshige Family Residence Gate Row House built?
- In the late Edo period. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to between 1751 and 1829, before the brewery's founding in 1868.
- What kind of building is the gate row house?
- A single-storey timber gate building in the manner of a nagayamon, five and a half bays by two, between the east storehouse and the shop. The eastern two and a half bays form the gate, and the south face combines clapboard, plastered upper walls and lattice windows. Its floor area is 24 square metres.
- What is the cedar ball hanging at the gate?
- A sugidama, a sphere of cedar foliage hung by breweries to announce the new sake. The gate with its cedar ball, photographed head-on, is one of the best-known images of the old Nakasendō.
- Can the gate row house be seen from the road?
- Yes, head-on from the old Nakasendō, with the Bokusui poem stone in front of it. During shop hours visitors may pass through the gate into the grounds.
- Why was the gate row house registered?
- It was registered on 26 September 2000 under the criterion of contributing to the nation's historic landscape, for its composed front of clapboard, plaster and lattice and for its part, with the east storehouse, shop and west storehouse, in the Nakasendō streetscape.
Basic Information
| Name | Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery and Takeshige Family Residence Gate Row House |
|---|---|
| Location | 2179 Higashimachi, Motai, Saku City, Nagano Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) |
| Year Designated | Registered 26 September 2000 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Timber, single storey, tiled roof, floor area 24 square metres (5 and a half by 2 bays) |
| Owner | Not recorded in the ACA database (within the Takeshige family estate) |
| Public Access | Not open to the public (working brewery and private home); shop entry weekdays 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; interiors on the open day around the spring equinox |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: 武重本家酒造及び武重家住宅門長屋
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00001792
- Saku City: Motai Ai-no-shuku (Nakasendo rest station)
- https://www.city.saku.nagano.jp/kanko/kanko/spot/nakasendo/motaiainoshuku/motaiainoshuku.html
- Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery, official website
- https://takeshige-honke.jp/
- Shinshu Tateshina Tourism Association: Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery
- https://shirakabakogen.jp/spot/takeshiga_honke_syuzo
Last verified: 2026.09.10