Tachikawa Yoshimura Family Residence

What the Tachikawa Yoshimura Family Residence Is

The Tachikawa Yoshimura Family Residence (立川吉村家住宅, Tachikawa Yoshimura-ke Jūtaku) is a mid-Meiji merchant compound in Tachikawa-cho 4-chome, Tottori City, Tottori Prefecture, whose six buildings were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on July 23, 1998.

The six are the main house, a utensil storehouse, a service gate, a kitchen storehouse, a rice storehouse and an annex. The Yoshimura family dealt in rice among its other business, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs mentions the family's prosperity when it describes the rice storehouse. All six are dated to the middle of the Meiji era, and they carry consecutive registration numbers, 31-0023 to 31-0028.

Japan's registration system lists buildings one at a time, which is why there is no single entry for the whole compound. The name Tachikawa Yoshimura Family Residence simply gathers six separate registrations on one plot. Every one of them was registered under the same criterion: a building that contributes to the historic landscape of the country. The owner is Tokuhei Co., Ltd.

How the Compound Is Laid Out

At the center of the Tachikawa Yoshimura Family Residence stands the main house, a 2-storey building with a footprint of 311 square meters. Pressed against it, just north of the entrance, is the small utensil storehouse. North of that, a roofed wall closes the gap to the kitchen storehouse, and the opening in the middle of this wall is the registered service gate.

The kitchen storehouse fills the northeast corner of the plot and joins a storehouse for daily goods, a miso store and a former maids' room under one run of roof. A lane runs along the north side of the property. The rice storehouse, 3 linked 2-storey storehouses, lines that lane, and beyond it, deeper along the lane boundary, sits the single-storey annex.

Read in order, the buildings run from the family's living quarters to storage for household goods, the service entrance, the stores that fed the kitchen, the granary of the rice trade and finally a workshop where the house itself was kept in repair. The layout is a fairly complete picture of what a Meiji merchant household handled on its own ground.

The 1936 Road Widening and the Moved Buildings

Part of the Tachikawa Yoshimura Family Residence was moved in 1936, when a road beside it was widened. According to the Agency's notes, the utensil storehouse was shifted together with the main house by Hikiya, the technique of sliding a building intact rather than dismantling it, and the storehouse was turned to face its present direction at the same time. The records for the service gate and the annex also note a 1936 move.

The Agency remarks that, despite the change of orientation, the utensil storehouse sits naturally against the main house. The compound therefore carries two dates at once: mid-Meiji construction and the street plan of the mid-1930s.

The Tachikawa Yoshimura Family Residence and Tottori's Townscape

Tottori lost two thirds of its old town to the great fire of April 17, 1952, which destroyed 5,228 private homes, according to Tottori Prefecture. Tachikawa lies on the east side of the old town, and the Tachikawa Yoshimura Family Residence keeps 6 mid-Meiji buildings together on a single plot.

The Agency calls the main house, with its namako-walled upper floor, a symbol of the district, and credits the lane-side storehouses and annex with keeping the streetscape in order. The value lies as much in how the buildings stand together as in any one of them.

Visiting the Tachikawa Yoshimura Family Residence

The Tachikawa Yoshimura Family Residence is private property owned by Tokuhei Co., Ltd. We found no announcement of public openings or interior tours, so a visit means looking at the buildings from the street and the lane. Please stay off the property and avoid disturbing the people who live and work there.

The compound is about 1.8 kilometers east of JR Tottori Station in a straight line, roughly 25 to 30 minutes on foot. There is no designated visitor parking. If you take photographs from the road, choose a spot that does not block people or traffic.