Former Tomita Family Residence (Sakurai)

What Is the Former Tomita Family Residence?

The Former Tomita Family Residence (旧冨田家住宅, Kyū Tomita-ke Jūtaku) is the house of the Tomita family, timber merchants since the end of the Meiji era, standing just south of Sakurai Station in Ōaza Sakurai, Sakurai City, Nara Prefecture; six of its buildings, all from the early Showa period (1926 to 1945), were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on June 24, 2021. They are a Western-style building, an annex, an inner room wing, a tea room, an inner storehouse and a tool storehouse, carrying the consecutive registration numbers 29-0318 to 29-0323.

The Council for Cultural Affairs recommended the registration on March 19, 2021, and all six buildings qualified for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. Five of them, every building except the Western-style one, were renovated in 2018. Today the Former Tomita Family Residence operates as an inn, Kura no Yado Ōrintei (蔵の宿 櫻林亭), often written Ourintei.

A Timber Merchant beside the Station

According to a local history reader published by the Sakurai City Board of Education, the opening of Sakurai Station in 1893 let timber travel far by rail, so logs from Yoshino and Uda came to be gathered at Sakurai, and mills and other timber businesses multiplied around the station. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that the Tomita family ran a timber business in Sakurai from the end of the Meiji era. The Former Tomita Family Residence is a reminder of that station-side trade.

The inn describes the property as a guest residence of the Tomita timber merchants handed down since the Meiji era. The Agency, however, dates all six registered buildings to the early Showa period, so no Meiji-era structure is part of the registration.

A crowdfunding page that Sakurai City ran through a hometown-tax donation site explains that Sakurai Machizukuri Co., Ltd., founded in fiscal 2016 as a designated urban renewal corporation, restored a timber merchant's former house as lodging, alongside a townhouse and a former bank near the station. The 2018 renovation of five of the Tomita buildings appears to belong to that project.

The Six Buildings and Why They Were Registered

Following the Agency's descriptions, the six buildings of the Former Tomita Family Residence are, in order of registration number:

• The Western-Style Building, a small single-storey wooden house with a slate roof in the southeast of the plot, with a building area of 34 square meters. It shows its timber frame on the wall surface in Half-timbering and has an arched entrance porch.
• The Annex, a 2-storey reception wing facing east, a little west of the center of the plot, with a building area of 52 square meters. Both floors hold the same pair of linked tatami rooms.
• The Inner Room, a single-storey wing joined to the west side of the Annex at the western edge of the plot, with a building area of 54 square meters, finished in a sukiya manner with plenty of wickerwork and bamboo.
• The Tea Room, a Chashitsu of three and a half tatami mats east of the Inner Storehouse, with a building area of 13 square meters, reached from the Inner Room by a covered passage.
• The Inner Storehouse, a 2-storey reinforced concrete store in the northwest corner, dressed on the outside to look like a traditional Dozo-zukuri earthen storehouse, with a building area of 19 square meters.
• The Tool Storehouse, a low, single-storey earthen storehouse on the south side of the plot, with a building area of 19 square meters, its interior converted into a bathroom and other spaces.

The Agency points out that the Annex, the Inner Room and the Tea Room all share a hip-and-gable Irimoya-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki tiles, yet the 2-storey Annex holds formal Shoin-zukuri rooms while the single-storey Inner Room leans toward sukiya design, and it treats these together with the two storehouses as one ensemble. Seen as a whole, the Former Tomita Family Residence gathers reception rooms, a tea room, storehouses for the family's goods and even a small Western-style house within a single plot.

The summary table issued with the recommendation places the Inner Storehouse west of the Western-Style Building and the Tool Storehouse west of the Tea Room, but the Agency's individual descriptions put the Inner Storehouse in the northwest corner and the Tool Storehouse on the south side. This page follows the individual descriptions.

Visiting the Former Tomita Family Residence

The Former Tomita Family Residence is now run as the inn Kura no Yado Ōrintei by Sakurai Machizukuri Co., Ltd., and in practice only overnight guests can go inside the buildings. The inn lets two units, Shōfū and Seifū, and its whole-property plan also includes the tea room it calls Ōhaku. From the room descriptions, Shōfū appears to be the Annex and Seifū the Inner Room together with the Inner Storehouse. A tea ceremony experience in the tea room is available by reservation. No arrangement for drop-in visits to the interiors could be found; check prices and booking details with Ōrintei directly.

Check-in runs from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and check-out is at 11:00 a.m., and smoking is not allowed anywhere on the grounds. If you are not staying, please do not enter the property, and keep the guests' privacy in mind when photographing from outside. How much of each building can be seen from the street has not been confirmed.

The Former Tomita Family Residence is about a 3-minute walk from the south exit of Sakurai Station, served by the JR Sakurai Line (Manyō Mahoroba Line) and the Kintetsu Osaka Line. By car it is about 30 minutes from the Tenri interchange of the Nishi-Meihan Expressway, and the inn has parking for 1 car behind the house for guests.