Ikekawa Family Residence West Storehouse

About the Ikekawa Family Residence West Storehouse

The Ikekawa Family Residence West Storehouse (池川家住宅西蔵, Ikekawa-ke Jūtaku Nishigura) is a 2-story Dozo-zukuri storehouse for household goods from the early Showa period in the northwest corner of the Ikekawa Family Residence in Nakamachi, Nara City, Nara Prefecture, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2018.

It faces south, with a doorway and an upper-floor window in the south wall, each under its own small hood. The storehouse is gabled (Kirizuma-zukuri) with Sangawara-buki pantiles laid as an Okiyane roof, and covers 19 square meters. It dates from the early Showa period (1926 to 1945) and was renovated in 1996 and 2010. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a storehouse for the family's belongings.

Why the Ikekawa West Storehouse was registered

The Ikekawa Family Residence West Storehouse was registered as contributing to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs presents it as a storehouse that sets off the garden around it.

Nara City describes both storehouses as carefully finished in plaster, then singles out the west one as especially showy, with namako tiling on the base of its front and plaster relief around the doorway. Tucked into the far corner of the estate, it is nonetheless the storehouse with the most dressed-up front.

What to look for at the Ikekawa West Storehouse

Everything worth seeing is on the south front. The walls are plastered in white Shikkui, and only the lower front is faced with Namako-kabe: flat tiles fixed to the wall, with the joints between them built up in rounded ridges of plaster. The result is a grid of white lines on gray tile across the foot of the facade. The other three sides have vertical boards along the base instead.

The doorway holds a pair of hinged doors that open outward from the center. They are finished in Kakegonuri: the edges are plastered in stepped layers, so that when the doors close the steps lock into one another and seal the gap, a detail particular to fireproof storehouse doors. Above the doorway is a plaster relief. The published notes do not say what it depicts.

The Ikekawa West Storehouse has the same 19 square meters and the same roof form as the east storehouse, yet it layers namako tiling, kakegonuri doors and plaster relief on its front. That front is what Nara City had in mind when it called the design showy.

Visiting the Ikekawa Family Residence West Storehouse

The Ikekawa Family Residence West Storehouse is part of a private home, and we found no notice of the interior being opened as of October 2026. It stands in the northwest corner behind the main house, and we have not confirmed whether its decorated front can be seen from the prefectural road.

Please do not enter the grounds, and keep any photographs to what is visible from the road. The estate layout and directions are on the Ikekawa Family Residence page.