Tatsumi Family Residence Third Storehouse

The Oldest Building on the Estate

The Tatsumi Family Residence Third Storehouse (辰巳家住宅三の蔵, Tatsumi-ke Jūtaku San-no-kura) is a two-story Dozo-zukuri storehouse from the late Edo period (the Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the span 1751 to 1829) in Hōryūji-nishi, Ikaruga Town, Nara Prefecture, registered as a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property on April 24, 2001. Of the Tatsumi estate's 13 registered structures, it is the only one older than 1915.

When the rest of the estate went up in 1915, this storehouse was kept. At 28 square meters of building area, it is also the smallest of the six storehouses on the property.

An Inner Storehouse

The Tatsumi Family Residence Third Storehouse stands south of the main house. The tea room adjoins it on the west. The covered corridor adjoins it on the north, linking it to the main house through the corridor's western strip and to the storeroom in the corridor's eastern half.

Storehouses were normally set apart from the house as a fire precaution. This one is instead wrapped by the corridor, the storeroom and the tea room, built into the private rear of the home. The official description calls it an uchigura, an inner storehouse, a good place for things the family wanted close at hand, from everyday goods to tea utensils.

The walls are finished in lime plaster, with vertical boards along the lower part.

A Roof of Its Own

According to the official description, this is the only storehouse on the estate with an oki-yane, a roof framed separately and set on top of the clay body rather than built into it. The gap between roof and walls means that if the roof burns, the fireproof body has a better chance of surviving, and the top of the walls can be inspected.

The storehouses built in 1915 do not use this form. It is tempting to read the difference as a sign of the older building's different age.

The Tatsumi Family Residence Third Storehouse was registered, as number 29-0051, as a structure that would be difficult to reproduce.

A Note on the Database Entry

In the Agency for Cultural Affairs database, the entry for the Third Storehouse describes a large storehouse standing west of the Second Rice Storehouse, while the entry for the Third Rice Storehouse describes a small storehouse with a separate roof, adjoining the tea room on its east side. This article treats the second description as the one that belongs to the Third Storehouse.

The tea room's description says it connects to the Third Storehouse, and the corridor's description says the corridor abuts the Third Storehouse and leads to it and the tea room. The recorded building areas, 28 square meters for the Third Storehouse and 60 square meters for the Third Rice Storehouse, fit a small inner storehouse and a large rice store respectively, and the database map shows the same arrangement. The texts appear to have been swapped, though confirmation from the database's maintainers is still needed.

Visiting

The Tatsumi Family Residence Third Storehouse is enclosed by the tea room and corridor behind the main house and should be assumed invisible from outside. The estate is a private home, and no opening had been announced as of September 2026.

For directions and the structures that can be seen from the lanes, see the Tatsumi Family Residence page.