Yamada Ryokan Front Storehouse

About the Yamada Ryokan Front Storehouse

The Yamada Ryokan Front Storehouse (山田旅館前土蔵, Yamada Ryokan Maedozo) is a single-storey earthen-walled storehouse at Otari Onsen in Otari Village, Nagano Prefecture, built in 1885 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 12, 2001, under number 20-0096.

It has a sheet-metal roof and a building area of 54 square meters. Its date is known from an ink inscription on the Munagi, the ridge beam. According to the inn, the Yamada Ryokan Front Storehouse has long been used to keep old inn equipment and to store grain and other provisions.

Why It Was Registered: The Only One Chosen as a Model of Form

Five of the six registered buildings at Yamada Ryokan were listed for their contribution to the historic landscape. The Yamada Ryokan Front Storehouse alone was registered as a model of form and craft. It was valued less as part of a view than for the way it is built and finished as a storehouse.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs places the Yamada Ryokan Front Storehouse west of the Main Building, facing east across the lane that runs from the Main Building to the New Building. It is a gabled Dozo-zukuri storehouse with its ridge running north to south, built in the Okiyane manner: a separately framed roof set on top of the plastered earthen body.

On the east side a Tsuchibisashi, a deep pent roof on posts, shelters two Tomae doorways side by side. The lower walls are weatherboarded and held by battens, and the upper walls are finished in white Shikkui lime plaster. What the Agency specifically records is that the plaster is carried up over the tops of the pent-roof posts and the beam they support.

What to Look For: Plaster-Wrapped Timbers and Earthquake Scars

Stand in front of the Yamada Ryokan Front Storehouse and start with the east side. The pent roof projects over the two doorways, and the upper parts of its posts and the beam across them are wrapped in white plaster, the same finish as the storehouse walls. Leaving that timber bare would have been the easier choice; the inn, too, points to the plasterers' trowel work here as something to see.

Lower down, the base of the wall is boarded and battened. The crisp line between white plaster above and boarding below also protects the foot of the wall from snow and splashing rain.

The Yamada Ryokan Front Storehouse was badly damaged in the Kamishiro Fault earthquake of 2014, and the inn says it has still not been repaired. It is a reminder of how hard it is to keep an earthen storehouse standing in a place that faces both heavy snow and major earthquakes.

Visiting the Yamada Ryokan Front Storehouse

The Yamada Ryokan Front Storehouse is an outbuilding of the inn, and there is no notice of the interior being opened to visitors. The exterior can be seen from the lane inside the grounds that runs from the Main Building to the New Building; the pent roof and the two doorways face that lane.

Because the earthquake damage remains unrepaired, keep your distance and do not touch the walls or the pent roof. The storehouse stands within a working inn, so ask the staff about access and photography (checked October 9, 2026).