A 1913 Farmhouse on the Yokota Plain
Yagi-ke Jūtaku Shuoku (矢城家住宅主屋, also written Yagike Jutaku Omoya, the main house of the Yagi family residence) stands at Yokota in Kurayoshi City, Tottori Prefecture. It was completed in 1913, the second year of the Taishō era, and was added to Japan's register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 17 November 2015. The house faces east across open farmland: two timber storeys under a sangawara pantile roof, with a ground-floor footprint of 276 square metres.
That last figure deserves a pause. Yokota sits about four kilometres west of central Kurayoshi, in the flat rice country watered by the Ogamo River, and a farmhouse of nearly three hundred square metres was a considerable undertaking here in 1913. The Agency for Cultural Affairs summary describes the building as large in scale and high in quality, and remarks on how strongly it reads against the surrounding fields.
The ground floor uses the plan Japanese carpenters call mutsumadori, six rooms arranged in a grid. What the Yagi family did with that grid is the interesting part. The formal zashiki reception rooms were placed along the southeast face so that they look directly into the garden, and a shikidai, the low boarded step that marks a ceremonial entrance rather than an everyday one, occupies the centre of the front. Around three sides of the raised floor run a veranda and an open-sided lean-to roof, a fukihanashi no geya, which turns the perimeter into a shaded walkway between interior and garden.
Then you step inside, and the vocabulary changes.
At the centre of the living quarters is a mawari-kaidan, a staircase that turns as it rises instead of running flat against a wall. Overhead, the roof rests on a truss frame. Neither element belongs to the inherited carpentry of a Hōki farmhouse. Both came out of the engineering manuals and technical schools that spread through provincial Japan in the Meiji and Taishō periods, and finding them inside a six-room country house is precisely what makes this building worth the trip past the front gate.
Registered, Not Designated: What That Means
Japan protects historic buildings on two separate tiers, and the distinction matters for anyone reading about this house. National Treasures (国宝) and Important Cultural Properties (重要文化財) are designated: a small and tightly controlled group in which repairs and alterations require official permission. Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (登録有形文化財) came later, through a 1996 amendment to the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties, and they work by notification and advice rather than by permit. The register was created to catch the enormous number of modern buildings, houses like this one among them, that were disappearing before anyone had time to assess them.
The Yagi main house was accepted under the first of the three registration criteria: buildings that contribute to the historic landscape of the country. It carries registration number 31-0204 and came through in the 82nd round of registrations, alongside 32 other properties in Tottori Prefecture at the time of counting. Kurayoshi now has more than thirty registered buildings, from a former bank branch in Uomachi to a public bathhouse in Shinmachi.
The Value in a Truss
Roof trusses reached Japan with Western architecture in the mid-nineteenth century and were used first in barracks, mills and schoolhouses. A truss spans further than a traditional Japanese wagoya frame using less timber, and it demands a carpenter who can read a drawing and cut accurate angled joints. When one turns up over the private rooms of a 1913 farmhouse in rural Tottori, it records something specific: a local builder who had absorbed new structural thinking, and a client with the means and the curiosity to pay for it.
The winding staircase points the same direction. Traditional two-storey farmhouses in this region generally reached the upper floor by ladder-like stairs tucked into a corner or over a storeroom. Placing a turned stair at the middle of the living quarters treats the upper floor as proper living space, not as an attic for silkworms or storage.
Visiting Yokota and the Kurayoshi Area
One practical point first, because it shapes everything else: the Yagi house is a private residence and the interior is not open to visitors. There is no reception desk, no opening hours and no admission fee. The building can be seen from the public road that passes the property, and that is the extent of it. Photography from the road is a matter of ordinary courtesy toward the people who live there; the garden and the interior are not accessible, so plan your visit as a short look at an exterior rather than as a house tour.
What you can appreciate from outside is the massing. The east elevation is the formal face, the eaves run long and low over the lean-to, and the two-storey volume rises above a landscape of paddy fields with almost nothing else of comparable height nearby. Late afternoon light from the west throws the roof profile into relief. In early summer the flooded paddies double the building in reflection.
Yokota is awkward to reach without a car. Kurayoshi Station, on the JR San'in Main Line, is roughly fifteen minutes away by taxi; local Nikkō buses run west from the station toward the Takashiro and Ogamo districts, but services are infrequent and the walk from the nearest stop is not short. Most travellers combine the stop with other sites in the western half of the city.
Combining the Visit
Central Kurayoshi, about twenty minutes away by car, holds the Utsubuki-Tamagawa Preservation District for Groups of Historic Buildings, selected nationally in 1998. White-plastered storehouses line the Tamagawa canal there, their roofs covered in the red Sekishū pantiles that give the San'in coast its distinctive colour, and several of the town's other registered properties sit within a few minutes' walk of each other. The Amidaiji burial mound group, a set of Yayoi-period square mounds with projecting corners, lies in Shimofukuda on the same side of the city.
Further out, Sekigane Onsen to the south and Misasa Onsen to the east both make convenient bases. Kurayoshi is quiet, comfortably walkable in its old quarter, and rarely crowded even in autumn.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Tottori
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Yagi Family Main Building
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Q&A
- Is Yagi-ke Jūtaku Shuoku open to the public?
- No. The Yagi family main house is a private residence and its interior is closed to visitors. Kurayoshi City lists its public access status as closed. The exterior can be viewed from the public road beside the property, but there are no opening hours, no admission fee and no guided access to the garden.
- When was Yagi-ke Jūtaku Shuoku built, and what is its cultural property status?
- The house was built in 1913 (Taishō 2) and registered as a Tangible Cultural Property on 17 November 2015 under registration number 31-0204. This is the register category, which is distinct from the higher tiers of Important Cultural Property and National Treasure.
- What does the six-room plan at Yagi-ke Jūtaku Shuoku actually look like?
- A mutsumadori arranges six rooms in a grid across the raised floor. Here the formal zashiki rooms occupy the southeast side facing the garden, a shikidai ceremonial entrance step sits at the centre of the east front, and a veranda with an open-sided lean-to roof wraps three sides of the plan.
- How do I reach Yagi-ke Jūtaku Shuoku from Kurayoshi Station?
- Yokota lies about four kilometres west of central Kurayoshi. A taxi from Kurayoshi Station takes roughly fifteen minutes. Local bus routes run in that direction but are infrequent and leave a long walk at the end, so a rental car or taxi is the practical choice.
- Why is Yagi-ke Jūtaku Shuoku called architecturally significant when it is only a farmhouse?
- Its interest lies in the mixture. The plan, the ceremonial entrance and the garden-facing reception rooms follow long-established rural practice, while the central winding staircase and the truss roof frame come from imported structural engineering. The building records the moment those two traditions met in a Tottori village.
Basic Information
| Name | Yagi-ke Jūtaku Shuoku (矢城家住宅主屋), Main House of the Yagi Family Residence |
|---|---|
| Location | 693 Yokota, Kurayoshi City, Tottori Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Building); registration no. 31-0204 |
| Year Designated | Registered 17 November 2015 (82nd registration round) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Two-storey timber construction, tiled roof, ground-floor area 276 m² |
| Owner | Private (not published in the national database) |
| Public Access | Interior closed; exterior visible from the public road |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: Yagike Jutaku Shuoku
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00010881
- Cultural Heritage Online: Yagike Jutaku Shuoku
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/276946
- Kurayoshi City, Registered Cultural Properties of the Nation
- https://www.city.kurayoshi.lg.jp/4237.htm
- Kurayoshi Tourism and Convention Association, Kurayoshi Cultural Property Walking Guide (PDF)
- https://www.kurayoshi-kankou.jp/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/bunkazai_sanpo.pdf
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (Buildings)
- https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkazai/shokai/yukei_kenzobutsu/toroku_yukei.html
Last verified: 2026.08.21