Okahashi Family Residence New Northwest Storehouse

About the Okahashi Family Residence New Northwest Storehouse

The Okahashi Family Residence New Northwest Storehouse (岡橋家住宅新乾蔵, Okahashi-ke Jūtaku Shin-inuigura) is a storehouse of around 1938 in the northwest of the Okahashi estate in Ozukucho, Kashihara City, Nara Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 17 August 2020 (No. 29-0313).

Inui is an old name for the northwest: the character is the trigram assigned to that direction, and the reading comes from inu and i, the dog and boar of the zodiac, whose directions flank it. The building does stand in the northwest of the plot, facing south. The prefix shin, "new", suggests that an earlier inui storehouse once existed, though no record of it has been found.

It is a 2-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse with a Hongawarabuki tiled roof and a building area of 88 square metres. Its registered address is 586-2 Ozukucho, a different plot number from the 586-1 of the other fourteen buildings.

Why the new northwest storehouse was registered

The Okahashi Family Residence New Northwest Storehouse was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that it lends weight to the northwest corner of the estate.

Among the Okahashi buildings with a known date, it is the most recent. The sequence runs from the late Edo detached reception room, to the pottery storehouse of around 1887, the main house and main storehouse of 1917, and the inner and east rice storehouses of 1919, to this storehouse of about 1938. Eight others, including the nagayamon gate, are dated only to the early Showa period, so how they relate in time to this one is not known.

Well into the Showa era, the family was still adding storehouses in the same manner as the Taisho ones: two storeys, tiled roof, white plaster. Keeping the estate consistent in appearance evidently mattered.

What to look for on the new northwest storehouse

The walls are plastered in Shikkui up into the eaves, with two stepped bands (Hachimaki) beneath them and water-shedding ledges (Mizukiri) at mid-height and at the base, four horizontal lines across the white walls. A lean-to (Geya) shelters the doorway, and the windows have small bracketed hoods (Mochiokuri).

The interior has plank floors and plank-lined walls. The roof is a traditional Wagoya frame stiffened at the corners with diagonal braces (Hiuchibari), short members set across the angle where beams meet to keep the frame square against lateral force.

On the same estate the Taisho-era inner and north rice storehouses used a Truss, but this Showa storehouse went back to the traditional frame and braced its corners instead. Triangulate the whole frame, or brace the corners: the two approaches can be compared within one family's storehouses.

Visiting the new northwest storehouse

The Okahashi Family Residence New Northwest Storehouse stands at the northwest corner of the estate. How much of it can be seen from outside has not been confirmed, and the interior with its braced roof frame is not open.

The estate is private and no public openings were announced as of September 2026. Directions and a guide to the buildings visible from the road are on the Okahashi Family Residence page.