A Merchant House That Traveled
The main house of the Fujii family runs twenty-seven meters along its ridge, its front turned to the northeast toward the road. What now looks like a settled part of the brewery compound in Aishō actually arrived here in pieces. The building began its life in Hino, a former castle town some twenty kilometers to the south, as the residence of the Nakamura Genzaemon family. Between about 1955 and 1964 it was taken apart, carried north, and rebuilt on the Fujii property, where it has served as the household's main dwelling ever since.
Moving a large timber house was ordinary craft in Japan, where post-and-beam framing is made to be dismantled and reassembled. The scale here is still unusual. The two-story structure covers 328 square meters, and the carpenters kept the original proportions when they raised it again: a tall, generously proportioned body with a reception wing of six rooms laid out in two rows of three.
Two Roofs, Two Purposes
Read the roofline and the house explains its own plan. The reception rooms, where guests were received and family life centered, sit under an irimoya roof, the hipped-and-gabled form that Japanese building reserves for the more formal parts of a structure. The earthen-floored service section, the doma where cooking and work happened, carries a lower, plainer kirizuma gable. The ridge visibly drops from one zone to the other, so a single glance separates the polite house from the working house.
The house dates to around 1916, late in the Taishō era, and its details lean modern rather than antique. Inside the doma, the exposed frame of posts and tie-beams is unusually clean and orderly, the restrained carpentry that came with early twentieth-century taste. The Agency for Cultural Affairs registered the building in December 2000 as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, recording it as a model of its type.
What to Notice on a Visit
Fujii Honke still brews under the Kyokujitsu label, and the residence stands inside a working sake compound rather than a museum. The company has run free brewery tours by reservation, and the historic buildings, this house and the storehouses behind it among them, fall along the route visitors walk. Because the family lives and works here, interiors are not always open, so the exterior is where most of the reading happens.
Stand at the northeast front and follow the ridge as it steps down toward the doma. The eaves sit higher than you might expect for a house of this age, and that height is the clearest sign of its Taishō ambitions. From here it is a short walk to the brick chimney and the plastered storehouses that complete the registered ensemble.
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Q&A
- Was this house always in Aishō?
- No. It was built in Hino as the Nakamura family home and moved to the Fujii property between roughly 1955 and 1964.
- Can I go inside?
- The house is a private residence within a working brewery. Fujii Honke offers free tours by advance reservation, though interior access varies, so it is worth confirming before you visit.
- Why does the roofline change height partway along?
- The taller irimoya roof covers the formal reception rooms, while the lower kirizuma gable covers the earthen-floored work area. The stepped ridge marks the line between them.
- When was it registered, and on what grounds?
- It became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in December 2000, recognized as a model example of its building type.
- What is Fujii Honke known for?
- A sake brewery founded in 1831, best known for its Kyokujitsu label and for white sake said to be offered to the Imperial Court's harvest rites.
Basic Information
| Name | Fujii Honke Residence, Main House (Fujii Honke Jūtaku Shuoku) |
|---|---|
| Location | 792 Nagano, Aishō-chō, Echi District, Shiga Prefecture |
| Category | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (building) |
| Registered | December 4, 2000 |
| Count | 1 building |
| Structure | Two-story timber, tiled roof; floor area approx. 328 m² |
| Date | Built c. 1916 (Taishō); relocated 1955–1964 |
| Registration criterion | A model of its type |
| Access | About 6 min by taxi from JR Inae Station; about 15 min on foot from Aichigawa Station (Ōmi Railway) |
| Owner / operator | Fujii Honke (sake brewery) |
References
- Fujii Honke — official website
- https://www.fujiihonke.jp/
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database — Fujii Honke Jūtaku Shuoku
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00002049
- Shiga Prefecture Tourism Information — Fujii Honke
- https://www.biwako-visitors.jp/spot/detail/1075/
Last verified: 2026.07.04