Kawase Family Residence Storehouse

About the Kawase Family Residence Storehouse

The Kawase Family Residence Storehouse (河瀬家住宅土蔵, Kawase-ke Jūtaku Dozō) is a late Edo storehouse, built between 1751 and 1829, in Tamoncho, Nara City, Nara Prefecture, and was entered on Japan's register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on March 27, 2006. It is a 2-story Dozo-zukuri structure with a tiled roof and a building area of 36 square meters.

It stands north of the main house, joined to it by a covered passage. In 1942 the whole building was moved by Hikiya, and its present position dates from then. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that a wicket gate and a wall are attached to it as well.

A 4-Meter Square Under Three Eaves

In plan the Kawase storehouse is a square about 4 m on each side. Its Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof runs east to west, with a Hisashi canopy projecting over the doorway on the south and a further canopy bending around the east and north sides.

Eaves on three sides give the roofline more going on than the small footprint would suggest. The doorway canopy faces south, toward the main house, where goods would have come and gone.

Plaster Work and Careful Building

On the front of the Kawase Family Residence Storehouse, the Shikkui lime plaster survives in good condition. The Agency calls the building small but carefully made.

That care is most likely why it was registered as a model of form. This is no merchant's showpiece warehouse; it is a modest storehouse at the back of a samurai compound, and its value lies in proportions and workmanship rather than size.

A Record of a Constable's Household

The Agency writes that the Kawase storehouse preserves the layout of a doshin household. Doshin were constables serving under the senior officers of the Nara Magistrate's Office, and Tamoncho was where they lived.

A storehouse set north of the house on a covered passage, its west side closed by an earthen wall: because that arrangement survives, the building helps show how a constable's home was put together.

Seeing the Kawase Storehouse

The Kawase storehouse stands at the back of the compound, north of the main house, and its interior is not open to the public (checked September 2026). Very little of it can be seen from the lane, and there is no official guidance on photography. Directions to the estate are on the Kawase Family Residence page.