Sato Family Residence Stone Warehouse B

What Is the Sato Family Residence Stone Warehouse B?

The Sato Family Residence Stone Warehouse B (佐藤家住宅石造倉庫Ｂ, Satō-ke Jūtaku Sekizō Sōko B) is a 2-storey stone storehouse built around 1899 in Nishidomari-cho, Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on November 5, 1997. It has a tiled roof and, at 33 square meters of building area, is the larger of the two stone warehouses on the property.

Stone Warehouse B stands south of the Wooden Annex and faces the north-south lane. The annex, acting as a covered forecourt, links it to the main house, so Warehouse B sits at the far end of the chain that runs from house to annex to store.

Same Design as Warehouse A, Different Date

In form, Sato Stone Warehouse B closely follows Stone Warehouse A, which stands west of the main house. Both are 2-storey masonry stores under tile roofs.

They were not built together, however. From the shape of its bricks and the weathering of its sandstone, the Agency for Cultural Affairs dates Warehouse B to the same period as the main house, around 1899. Warehouse A is considered early Meiji, so B came later, as part of the same building campaign as the house and annex.

It looks as though the Sato family simply repeated the design of their first stone store when they needed a second, and made it a little bigger: 33 square meters against Warehouse A's 26 square meters.

A Survivor of the Foreign Settlement Warehouse Type

The Agency sees the Sato Family Residence Stone Warehouse B as a remnant that shows what the stone warehouses of Nagasaki's foreign settlement were like. From the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate to the mid-Meiji period, many such warehouses were built in the settlement, and almost none survive today.

With the settlement warehouses almost entirely gone, this one, standing outside the old settlement on a private family's land, is a rare, concrete clue to how they looked.

Why Sato Stone Warehouse B Was Registered

The Sato Family Residence Stone Warehouse B was listed as a registered tangible cultural property under the criterion of being difficult to reproduce, as number 42-0006, the last of the five Sato registrations. Its value lies in preserving the appearance of a settlement-era stone warehouse, a type that has all but disappeared.

Seeing Sato Stone Warehouse B

The Sato Family Residence Stone Warehouse B belongs to a private home, and its interior is not open to the public (checked September 2026). As it faces the north-south lane, the exterior can be seen from the road. Viewed together with the Wooden Annex to its north, it shows how the house connected to its stores, and Stone Warehouse A on the junction is only a few steps away for comparing the two. There is no official guidance on photography; please be considerate of the residents. Directions are on the Sato Family Residence (Nagasaki) page.