Okuno Family Residence New Storehouse

A storehouse dated by a prayer talisman

Okuno Family Residence New Storehouse (奥野家住宅新蔵, Okuno-ke Jūtaku Shingura) is a storehouse built in 1877 in Nakasakurazuka, Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on July 8, 2008, under number 27-0497.

It stands in the southeast corner of the plot with its ridge running north to south: a two-storey Dozo-zukuri building 6.3 meters by 4.5 meters, with a building area of 28 square meters.

The date comes from a goma prayer talisman from Mount Minoo kept in the building, which the city says is inscribed with an auspicious day in the seventh month of 1877. Only the 1910 rice storehouse is younger. The name "new storehouse" most likely marked it out from the older stores already on the plot.

Formal tiles and tall board cladding

The Okuno Family Residence New Storehouse has a gabled Kirizuma-zukuri roof set over the clay body as an okiyane, and it is laid in Hongawarabuki, the formal system of alternating round and flat tiles. That method is heavier and more laborious than ordinary pantiles, a careful choice for an 1877 storehouse.

The entrance is not on a long side but on the north gable end, under its own small canopy. The outer walls are clad in vertical boards carried all the way up to the plaster band beneath the eaves, so very little white plaster shows.

Linked to a detached reception room

According to the agency, the Okuno Family Residence New Storehouse was once joined to a detached reception room that stood to its north, connected through the yard in front of the store. Putting the door on the north gable makes sense only with that link in mind.

If the store and the reception room worked together, it may well have held the tableware and furnishings used when guests were received. The reception room is gone, but the orientation of the storehouse and the position of its door still hint at how the homestead once functioned.

It was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape of the country.

What to look for

Note how high the board cladding goes on the Okuno Family Residence New Storehouse. The west storehouse is board-clad too, but here the boards run right up to the plaster band and cover almost the whole wall. Protecting plaster from rain with timber is common; taking it this far is not.

The formal tiled roof also survives in better shape than that of the rice storehouse, which is under temporary sheet metal.

Visiting

The Okuno Family Residence New Storehouse stands within a private homestead and is not open inside. Visitors can enter the grounds for Sakura no Shōbei events or on café days, but how far they may go varies from event to event. If you particularly want to see the new storehouse, ask Sakura no Shōbei in advance. Directions are on the Okuno Family Residence (Toyonaka) page.