Tsuji Honten Shop and Main House

What Is the Tsuji Honten Shop and Main House?

The Tsuji Honten Shop and Main House (辻本店店舗兼主屋, Tsuji Honten Tenpo-ken-shuoku) is a late-Edo-period townhouse at the heart of the Tsuji Honten sake brewery in Katsuyama, Maniwa City, Okayama Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2014. It faces west onto the old Izumo road and holds, under one roof, both the shop where sake was sold and the family's living quarters.

The Tsuji Honten Shop and Main House is a 2-storey timber building with a footprint of 336 square meters, the largest of the brewery's nine registered structures. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to the late Edo period (roughly 1751 to 1830) and records alterations in the mid-Meiji period (1883 to 1897) and again in the early Showa period (1926 to 1945). In other words, at least three generations of carpenters have left their work in it.

The roof is a Kirizuma-zukuri gable covered in Sangawara-buki pan tiles, and at the east end of the north side sits a later wing, the shinzashiki or new reception room, under an Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable roof. The brewery itself describes the building as a large-format machiya.

Why the Tsuji Honten Shop and Main House Was Registered

The Tsuji Honten Shop and Main House was registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the nation. The Agency's note points in particular to its local character, such as the Namako-kabe tiling on the lower part of the upper-floor walls.

The plan inside follows the regional merchant-house pattern closely. A packed-earth passage, the doma, runs through the middle; the living rooms lie to the north of it and the shop to the south, so stepping in from the street you have family life on one hand and trade on the other. That a brewer's house combining both functions stayed in use through Meiji and Showa renovations is much of what gives the Tsuji Honten Shop and Main House its value.

The brewery names reddish roof tiles and namako walls as hallmarks of houses in this district. White plaster, a diagonal grid of grey tiles and a rust-colored roof above: you will see that combination again and again walking through Katsuyama, and this building shows it at full scale.

What to Look For on the Street Front

A lean-to eave, or Geya, projects from the front of the Tsuji Honten Shop and Main House, and beneath it the ground floor carries plain latticework and a projecting lattice window, the degōshi. The projecting lattice sits right at a passer-by's eye level, and it rewards a slow look: compare the spacing of the slats on the shop half and on the house half.

Look up and the lower half of the upper wall turns to namako tiling, flat tiles set on the diagonal with their joints raised into rounded ridges of plaster. It protects the part of the wall that takes the most rain and snow, a real concern in a mountain town in northern Okayama where winters are cold.

The shinzashiki wing on the north side has a hip-and-gable roof, a different form from the plain gable of the main block. Stand at an angle on the street and you can find a spot where the two roof shapes overlap.

Visiting the Tsuji Honten Shop and Main House

The front of the Tsuji Honten Shop and Main House can be viewed freely from the old Izumo road. For the whole elevation in one view, stand outside the West Storehouse across the street. The road is narrow, so watch for passing cars.

The northern half is the family home and is not open. No visits are offered to the southern half either, which the Agency describes as the shop. The brewery's own shop now operates in the West Storehouse opposite, so that is where to go to buy sake. Directions and the visiting conditions for the whole site are collected on the Tsuji Honten Sake Brewery page.