Yurinso Nagayamon Gate

What Is the Yurinso Nagayamon Gate?

The Yurinso Nagayamon Gate (有隣荘長屋門, Yūrinsō Nagayamon) is a single-story wooden gatehouse built around 1923 at the front of the Yurinso estate in Kuniyasu, Tottori City, Tottori Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2013.

It stands on the south edge of the lot, lined up exactly with the porch of the main house. The building measures 10.4 m by 4.0 m, with a building area of 42 square meters. Like every Nagayamon, it is a gate and a row building in one: the passage runs through the middle, with small rooms on either side.

Why the Yurinso Nagayamon Gate Was Registered

The Yurinso Nagayamon Gate was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, number 31-0176, with the main house, annex and six other structures, for contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a gatehouse that shows the standing of an old family. In the Edo period gates of this type belonged to samurai residences and to the upper tier of farming families who served as village officials, and the gate itself announced the household's rank to anyone passing. Tottori Prefecture's report likewise credits the stone wall and the gatehouse at the front with setting off the dignity of the estate.

What to Look for at the Yurinso Nagayamon Gate

Main doors and wicket

The Yurinso Nagayamon Gate is divided into three bays. The center bay is the passage, closed by hanging board doors, and on the east side there is a Kugurido, a low wicket door you stoop to pass through. The arrangement let the household keep the great doors shut for everyday comings and goings and throw them open only on formal occasions.

The operator says the doors of the gate brought from the family's old site are each a single plank of camphor wood, cut from a tree that grew on the old property. The sources do not say whether this refers to the boards of this gatehouse or to another gate, but it is worth looking for joins in the door boards when you stand in front of the passage.

White plaster and battened boards

The roof is Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable, laid with Sangawara-buki tiles. The walls are finished in white Shikkui plaster above and clad lower down in sasarako shitamiita, overlapping boards held by battens notched to fit each overlap, a refined form of Shitami-itabari. The plaster and boards of the two side rooms sit symmetrically either side of the dark opening. The earthen walls that run off left and right use the same plaster and boarding, so gate and walls read as one continuous front.

The chinquapin tree

A chinquapin tree said to be about 200 years old rises beside the gate, and the operator says it too was moved from the old site. Step back before you enter and take in the tiled roof and the spread of the tree together: this is the face the estate shows the street.

Visiting the Yurinso Nagayamon Gate

The Yurinso Nagayamon Gate stands at the front of the estate, and its exterior can be seen from outside. Restaurant guests walk through it to the porch of the main house. There is no notice of the side rooms being open to visitors (checked October 2, 2026).

Diners come and go through the gate during opening hours, so keep the passage clear if you stop to take pictures. Directions are on the Yurinso page.