Shimada Family Main House

The Shimada Family Residence Main Building: A Red-Roofed Meiji Treasure in Western Shimane

Tucked at the southern foot of a small wooded hill in the heart of Masuda City, the Main Building of the Shimada Family Residence (Shimada-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is one of those quiet historical gems that travelers stumble upon and never forget. Built in 1888, the early years of Japan's Meiji era, this large wooden townhouse has stood for well over a century with its sweeping crimson-red tile roof gleaming above the lanes of the Otoyoshi neighborhood. Together with the older sake brewery on the same property, it forms a remarkably preserved snapshot of life and industry in a regional Japanese merchant household.

For visitors exploring the rich cultural landscape of western Shimane — the land of medieval lord Masuda Kanetaka, the famed ink-painter Sesshū, and the soaring Iwami Kagura sacred dance — the Shimada residence offers something different: a glimpse of the everyday architecture that shaped this region's distinctive character.

Historical Background

The Shimada family residence sits in Otoyoshi-chō, a quiet neighborhood on the eastern fringe of central Masuda. This area has been inhabited and culturally significant for centuries — the great Zen monk-painter Sesshū Tōyō chose a small temple here as the place to spend his final years and died in the area in 1506. Otoyoshi later developed as a peripheral merchant and craft district along the routes radiating out from the historic Masuda town center.

The Shimada family operated a sake-brewing business on the property, and the storehouse-style brewery beside the main house is even older than the dwelling itself, with its earliest sections believed to date from the late Edo period (between 1751 and 1830). When the family rebuilt their main residence in 1888, they did so on the grand scale appropriate to a successful brewing household — a long single-story wooden building with a partial second story above the western half, large enough to accommodate the family, employees, customers, and the daily rhythms of a brewery enterprise.

The building was sensitively renovated in around 1966 and again in around 1975, but its essential Meiji-era form has been carefully preserved.

Why It Was Designated a Cultural Property

On June 28, 2017, the Shimada Family Residence Main Building was added to Japan's Register of Tangible Cultural Properties (Tōroku Yūkei Bunkazai). It was registered under the criterion of "contributing to the historic landscape of the nation."

This designation recognizes several intertwined values. First, the building is a substantial and intact example of late nineteenth-century merchant residential architecture in the San'in region. Few buildings of this scale and age have survived so completely in this corner of Japan. Second, the dramatic red Sekishū-gawara tile roof is itself a regional treasure — Sekishū tiles are one of Japan's three great roof-tile traditions, and Masuda lies within the heartland of their production. Third, the Shimada residence is paired on the same site with its older sake brewery (also separately registered in 2017), so the two structures together preserve the spatial logic of a working brewing household. Finally, the residence anchors a streetscape of considerable atmospheric charm, with the white-plastered walls of the brewery rising above stone retaining work and the broad red roof of the main house dominating the skyline above.

Architectural Highlights and What to Look For

The main building stretches roughly 9.5 ken (about 17.3 meters) along its length and 6 ken (about 10.9 meters) in depth — a generous footprint of around 265 square meters. The roof is built in the kirizuma-zukuri gabled style and finished with sangawara-buki, a method of laying overlapping pan-tiles that produces clean, parallel rippled lines across the roof surface.

Only the western half of the building has a second story, giving the structure an asymmetrical silhouette that is characteristic of Meiji-era rural and small-town homes. On the left as you face the building, you will notice a traditional doma — an earthen-floored work area that historically served as the entrance, kitchen, and informal workspace. The raised floor portion is laid out in three parallel rows comprising eight tatami rooms, an arrangement that allowed the family to host many guests, segregate private and public spaces, and conduct business affairs in dedicated reception areas. A small extension toward the east rear of the building once contained service rooms and the toilet.

But the single most striking element is the vast red-tile roof. This is Sekishū-gawara, the famous ceramic roof tile produced in the Iwami region of western Shimane. Fired at temperatures exceeding 1200°C and finished with a glaze made from Kimachi stone quarried in eastern Shimane, Sekishū tiles are extraordinarily resistant to frost, salt-laden sea winds, and the heavy snow loads of the Sea of Japan coast. Their warm, deep crimson color has shaped the visual identity of villages and towns across the San'in coast for centuries, and on the Shimada residence the tiles glow against the green of the surrounding hillside.

Just next door, the Shimada Family Residence Sake Brewery rises in white-plastered, two-story dozo (earthen storehouse) style. Its eastern half dates from the Edo period and the western half was added during the Meiji era, with a short single-story extension trailing further west. Built upon a stone retaining wall along the street, the white walls plastered up to the eaves and topped with red Sekishū tiles offer one of the most photogenic scenes in the neighborhood.

Visitor Information

Please note that the Shimada Family Residence is a privately maintained property and the interior is not generally open to the public. Visitors are welcome to admire and photograph the exterior from the public street, but please respect the privacy of any current residents and do not enter the grounds without permission. The exterior alone — particularly the long sweep of red-tile roof over the main building and the white walls of the brewery beside it — rewards a thoughtful walk.

The site is reached most easily by car or taxi from JR Masuda Station, which is the main rail hub of western Shimane and is served by both the JR San'in Main Line and the JR Yamaguchi Line. The property is in the Otoyoshi-chō district about ten minutes east of the station. Travelers without a car can take a local Iwami Kōtsū bus toward Kujō from Masuda Station and disembark in the Otoyoshi area. Bicycles can also be rented from the Masuda City Tourism Association at the station, and the gentle terrain makes for a pleasant ride.

The best time to visit is on a clear day in late spring or autumn, when soft sunlight makes the red roof tiles especially vivid against blue sky.

Surrounding Attractions

The neighborhood around the Shimada residence is unexpectedly rich for so quiet a setting. Within a short distance you will find Daikian, the Sōtō-school temple where the legendary Zen monk-painter Sesshū Tōyō spent his last years and died in 1506; his grave and a stone monument inscribed with his story are within the temple precincts. Beside it stands the Sesshū Memorial Museum (Masuda City Sesshū-no-Sato Kinenkan), which holds important materials related to Sesshū and the medieval Masuda clan. Please note that the Memorial Museum has been closed for renovation since April 2024 and is scheduled to reopen in April 2026; please confirm the current status before planning a visit.

A short drive into central Masuda brings you to two further treasures of medieval Japanese garden art: Manpuku-ji and Ikō-ji, both founded under the patronage of the Masuda lords and both home to gardens designed by Sesshū himself in the late fifteenth century. These rank among the four great gardens attributed to Sesshū anywhere in Japan, and visiting them in the same day as the Shimada residence makes for a deeply satisfying itinerary tracing both elite culture and merchant life. Manpuku-ji's Main Hall is a designated Important Cultural Property, and Ikō-ji's garden is a nationally designated Place of Scenic Beauty and Historic Site.

Other recommended stops include the Masuda History and Culture Exchange Center (Rekishīna) in the renovated former Mino District Office, a graceful 1921 Taishō-era building also registered as a Tangible Cultural Property; and the Iwami Art Museum (Iwami Bijutsukan) at Grand Toit, which is itself roofed with around 280,000 Sekishū tiles and is the largest Sekishū-tiled building in the world. The whole area belongs to the Japan Heritage story "Tasting Masuda — Medieval Japan's Masterpiece."