Okuno Shogo Family Residence

About the Okuno Shogo Family Residence

The Okuno Shogo Family Residence (奥野省吾家住宅, Okuno Shōgo-ke Jūtaku) is a town-house estate at 188 Mori, Hakuta-cho, Yasugi City, Shimane Prefecture, centered on a main house built in 1911, whose main house, storehouse, rear nagaya and wall were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan in 2005. That is three buildings and one wall, all entered as Registered Tangible Cultural Property structures on February 9, 2005, under the consecutive registration numbers 32-0041 to 32-0044.

The name follows a common pattern for Japanese family homes: the surname Okuno, the given name Shōgo, and ke, "household." According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Okuno Shogo main house is a two-story town house facing west onto the old road. A passage with an earth floor runs from front to back along its south side, and the raised floor is laid out as two rows of three rooms. The Agency singles out its tall street front and many openings as typical of the very end of the Meiji era.

An Estate Built in a Single Year

Three of the four registered structures at the Okuno Shogo Family Residence, the main house, the storehouse and the rear nagaya, are all dated to 1911. House, storehouse and back building went up together, which suggests the whole estate was laid out in one campaign in the last years of Meiji.

The wall is the exception. It was built in 1929 in reinforced concrete, a modern addition to an otherwise timber-framed compound. The registrations also differ in their grounds: the main house and storehouse were listed as models of form, while the rear nagaya and the wall were listed for their contribution to the historic landscape.

How the Okuno Shogo Estate Is Arranged

The plot is long and narrow, with the main house at its western end on the road. The storehouse stands behind the house to the east, and the rear nagaya, a single-story back building, runs north to south along the plot's eastern edge. Walking in from the street you would pass house, storehouse and back building in that order.

The wall lies north of the main house and storehouse, bending along the western half of the plot's north side. It is 45 meters long and about 2 meters high, and it closes a garden north of the house on three sides, in a squared U.

In floor area the main house covers 158 square meters, the rear nagaya 44 and the storehouse 22. The storehouse is a two-story Dozo-zukuri building with a separate "floating" roof (Okiyane); the rear nagaya gathers a passage, a board-floored room and an earth-floored miso store under one roof.

Each structure has its own page with details of its construction.

The Okuno Shogo Family Residence in Mori

Mori was the castle town of the Mori domain, assessed at 10,000 koku. The Yasugi City Tourism Association describes a district where old family homes, merchant houses and the estates of wealthy farmers line the old road, and the Okuno Shogo main house is one of the buildings that face it.

On the same date, February 9, 2005, five buildings of the Okuno Motoke Residence (27 Mori) and seven of the Yamamoto Family Residence (71 Mori) were registered too. They are separate estates at separate addresses. The Okuno Motoke main house faces east onto the road, the opposite way from the Okuno Shogo main house. The two share a surname, but we found no official source on how the families are connected.

Visiting the Okuno Shogo Family Residence

The national database does not name an owner for the Okuno Shogo Family Residence, and neither Yasugi City nor the tourism association lists it as a place open to visitors. Assume the interior is closed and view the main house from the road; the storehouse and rear nagaya stand behind it and are hard to see from the street. There is no official word on photography, but since the house may still be lived in, please stay off the property.

By public transport, take the Yasugi City "Yellow Bus" on the Hakuta (Kusano) to Yasugi line from JR Yasugi Station and get off at the Mori stop; the timetable gives a ride of about 26 to 31 minutes. Only a few buses run each day, and some skip Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. By car, the tourism association says Mori is about 15 minutes from Yasugi Interchange on the San'in Expressway. For questions about the Mori townscape it refers visitors to the Mori Community Center (phone 0854-37-0225).