The Face the Estate Turns to the Road
The Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery and Takeshige Family Residence Shop (武重本家酒造及び武重家住宅店) is the late-Edo shopfront 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 two-storey building of Dozo-zukuri earthen-wall construction under a tiled roof, with a floor area of 87 square metres, dated by the Agency for Cultural Affairs to between 1751 and 1829.
It extends west of the gate house along the water channel for twelve bays, about 22 metres. The central part is a two-storey nuriya, a building whose outer walls are sealed with earthen plaster; the five western bays form a second gate house with a gate opening at its centre. On the south face, toward the road, the lower wall is finished in clapboard held by battens, and toward the east a projecting lattice window sits under a small tiled hood, breaking up the frontage.
A nuriya uses the plastered-wall technique of a storehouse without the full thickness of a cellar wall, bringing fire resistance to a townscape. The Takeshige settled in Motai early in the Edo period and took up brewing in 1868; the shop is older than the brewery and was the public face of the family's household and trade before sake was part of it.
Why It Is Listed
The register lists the shop under the criterion of contributing to the nation's historic landscape, and the Agency's commentary points to the clapboard lower wall and the hooded lattice window as the elements that give the street variety. Instead of an unbroken white wall, dark boards, a wooden grille and a scrap of tiled roof punctuate the frontage.
What distinguishes the building is the way a two-storey plastered core and a single-storey gate wing are combined in a single twelve-bay length. The Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery and Takeshige Family Residence Shop is shop, gate and row house in one, presenting the estate to the road as a single long elevation.
With the east storehouse, the gate house and the west storehouse, the shop forms the centre of Motai's white-walled street. Motai was a rest stop between the Nakasendō post towns of Mochizuki and Ashida, bypassed when the main route moved, which is why its Edo-period street survived. The shop is the wall a traveller walking that street looks at longest.
What to Look For
Stand on the old Nakasendō and read the south face from east to west. First comes the gate of the gate house with its cedar ball, then the Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery and Takeshige Family Residence Shop: a lattice window under a little tiled hood toward the east, the white two-storey plastered wall at the centre, and the lower gate wing with its second gate toward the west. Height and material change three times within one building.
The clapboard along the base is horizontal boarding with its joints covered by thin battens, laying a dark band beneath the white. From the water channel upward you get four layers: the surface of the stream, the dark boards, the white plaster, the tiled eaves.
The hooded lattice window occurs only once, toward the eastern end. Pause there and you can see the tiles of the hood casting their shadow across the grille. The Agency's remark about variety in the streetscape comes down to this one detail.
Visiting and Getting There
The Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery and Takeshige Family Residence Shop faces the old Nakasendō, and its full south elevation can be viewed from the road; stand on the far side of the water channel to take in all twelve bays at once. During shop hours you may enter the compound through the gate to buy sake, but the shop building itself is not open for tours.
This is a brewery still making sake, and a private house. There are no regular interior tours. The compound can be entered on weekdays between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., when the office and shop are open for sales; it is closed on weekends, national holidays, the New Year period and the old-calendar Bon holiday. The one reliable chance to go inside is the annual open day around the spring equinox, usually 20 or 21 March, with cellar tours and tastings. In 2026 the brewery laid on a chartered bus from Sakudaira Station for the occasion. Reservation-only tasting sessions, sometimes with a walk through the cellars, are announced on the official website.
By public transport, take a Chikuma Bus from JR Sakudaira Station toward Mochizuki and Ashida and get off at Motai-iriguchi, a walk of about two minutes. The buses run only on weekdays, so at weekends allow about 30 minutes by taxi or car from Sakudaira, a distance of some 15 kilometres. Drivers coming off the Joshin-etsu Expressway at the Saku or Yunomaru interchanges should also allow about 30 minutes. You are free to photograph the streetscape from the road; within the grounds, ask the staff during events.
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Q&A
- When was the Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery and Takeshige Family Residence Shop built?
- In the late Edo period. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to between 1751 and 1829, before the brewery was founded in 1868.
- What kind of building is the shop?
- A long earthen-walled building twelve bays long with a floor area of 87 square metres, combining a two-storey plastered core with a five-bay gate wing at its western end.
- Can the shop be seen from the road?
- Yes. It faces the old Nakasendō across the water channel and its whole south face is visible. During shop hours visitors may enter the grounds to buy sake.
- What is distinctive about the shop's street face?
- A clapboard lower wall held by battens, and toward the east a projecting lattice window under a small tiled hood, which together break up the white wall and give the street its variety.
- Why was the shop registered?
- It was registered on 26 September 2000 under the criterion of contributing to the nation's historic landscape, for the variety its elevation brings to the streetscape of the old Nakasendō.
Basic Information
| Name | Takeshige Honke Sake Brewery and Takeshige Family Residence Shop |
|---|---|
| Location | 2179 Higashimachi, Motai, Saku City, Nagano Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) |
| Year Designated | Registered 26 September 2000 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Earthen-wall construction (dozo-zukuri), 2 storeys, tiled roof, floor area 87 square metres (12 bays long) |
| 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店
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00001793
- 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