Arai Family Residence Storehouse

What the Arai Family Residence Storehouse is

The Arai Family Residence Storehouse (新井家住宅蔵, Arai-ke Jūtaku Kura) is a large earthen-walled kura, or fireproof storehouse, built in 1932 at the Arai Family Residence in Nakasho, Izumisano City, Osaka Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on July 8, 1999. Its register number is 27-0069 and it has a building area of 126 square meters.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs places the storehouse to the south of the living quarters, linked to the main house by a corridor, under a gabled roof of hongawara-buki tiles. The Agency's own entry is inconsistent on height: the structure field reads single-storey, while the descriptive text calls it a large two-storey storehouse. The owners list it as the dozo, on the right-hand side of the garden next to the main house that served as the family home.

What the Storehouse held and why it was registered

Japanese merchant and farming households often kept two kinds of kura: outward-facing ones for rice or trade goods and inward-facing ones for the household's own belongings. The Agency describes the Arai Family Residence Storehouse as the second kind, a store for furnishings and table and serving ware.

In a house built to entertain, that meant trays, lacquered bowls, sake vessels and the decorative pieces brought out for the reception rooms, enough for large gatherings. Linking the store to the main house by a covered corridor meant these could be carried to the kitchen and the reception wings in any weather.

The Agency calls the exterior design standard and does not rest its case on appearance. What it values is the storehouse's evidence for how the family lived from the Taishō years into the Shōwa era. Like the other five entries, it was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape.

What to look for at the Storehouse

Look at the lower part of the walls. The ground-floor level is finished in Namako-kabe, a cladding of flat square tiles set into the wall with their joints built up in raised white plaster. The resulting grid of grey tile and white seams protected the wall against rain and fire, and it reads clearly even from across the garden.

The gabled hongawara roof has the weight you would expect on a store of 126 square meters. The owners' website includes a photograph captioned as the roof framing inside the storehouse, a rare look at the timber structure normally hidden from view.

According to the family history, the roofs of the Arai Family Residence were strafed by aircraft about three times during the war, and Typhoon Jebi in 2018 badly damaged the tiles again. The roof of the Arai Family Residence Storehouse that you see today is the result of repairs completed in 2023.

Visiting the Storehouse

The exterior of the Arai Family Residence Storehouse can be seen during group tours arranged with the owners and on the free autumn open day (checked September 27, 2026). The namako-kabe and gable are easiest to study from the south side of the main house.

The official site does not say whether the interior is shown on tours. The rental spaces are the two reception wings and the kitchen studio in the main house; the storehouse is not among them. Ask when you apply if you want to see inside.

Photography rules are not published, so check on the day.