Kusudo Family Residence Rice Storehouse

Kusudo Family Residence Rice Storehouse

The Kusudo Family Residence Rice Storehouse (楠戸家住宅米蔵, Kusudo-ke Jūtaku Komegura) is a two-story earthen-walled storehouse from the mid-Meiji period that closes off the far end of the Kusudo family estate in Higashimachi, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 20, 1996.

The national register lists it as a two-story Dozo-zukuri structure with a tiled roof and a building area of 96 square meters. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a long building of the ōkabe type, with its posts buried inside thick plastered walls, under a roof of hongawara tiles.

It is by far the largest of the three registered storehouses. The charcoal storehouse beside it covers 19 square meters and the tool storehouse nearer the house 18, so the rice storehouse is roughly five times their size. The Kusudo family were landowners as well as kimono merchants, and this is where, by family account, the rice paid in by their tenant farmers was kept.

Why the Rice Storehouse Was Registered

The Kusudo Family Residence Rice Storehouse carries registration number 33-0002 and was registered on the grounds that it would not be easy to reproduce. The Agency points to the weighty treatment of its walls, with Namako-kabe cladding on the lower walls and on the small drip canopies, and to its raised base of cut stone. Together with the other storehouses, it says, the building is important for understanding how a Meiji-era estate was organized.

Namako-kabe is made by fixing flat tiles to the wall and building up the joints with plaster into rounded ridges, which protects the earthen wall behind from rain and fire. It is Kurashiki's signature finish, and on the Kusudo rice storehouse it climbs from the base of the wall onto the little canopies that jut out partway up.

Its value is not only in the details. Walk from the shop on the street through the courtyard, past the main house, the tool storehouse and the charcoal storehouse, and the rice storehouse is where the estate ends. It is the building that shows how deep a Meiji merchant's property ran.

What to Look For: The Lane and the East Gable

You approach the rice storehouse along the stone-paved lane that runs back down the east side of the plot. The family says the lane survives from the days when tenant farmers wheeled their rice in on handcarts. In Kurashiki, narrow lanes shaded by overhanging eaves like this one are called hiyasai.

At the end of the lane you face the east gable of the rice storehouse. According to the Agency, this gable end also served as a passage through to the back of the property, so the storehouse was part of a route rather than a dead end.

Look down first. The cut-stone base is built up a step above the ground, presumably to keep damp away from the rice. Then look up through the layers: the grid of namako tiles at the base, the drip canopies, the white plaster wall and finally the heavy tiled roof.

After registration the family fitted the building out as a cafe, which they ran for years as Yume Kukan Hashimaya. In spring 2022 it reopened as atelier & salon Hashimaya, a salon built around fermented foods, so you can eat and drink inside the Kusudo Family Residence Rice Storehouse itself. Of the three registered storehouses, it is the only one you can routinely enter.

Visiting the Rice Storehouse

The interior is open to salon guests from 11:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. (last orders 2:30 p.m.). The salon is closed on Tuesdays and on some other days. Lunch and cafe visits must be booked by the day before, and afternoon tea two days ahead, through the contact options on the official website.

For the best view of the exterior, stand in the lane and look straight up at the east gable. Then step back and follow the line of the namako tiles and drip canopies along the wall to get a sense of the building's length.

No photography rules have been published, so ask the staff before taking pictures inside. Directions and information on the main house openings are on the Kusudo Family Residence page.