Yoshida Family Residence (Imizu)

Yoshida Family Residence (Imizu): an old family's estate on a shrine approach

The Yoshida Family Residence (吉田家住宅, Yoshida-ke Jūtaku) is the estate of an old local family in Futakuchi, Imizu City, Toyama Prefecture, whose main house was built in 1872; the main house, stone storehouse, storehouse and wooden fence were registered as four Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan on August 7, 2023.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the Yoshida as an old family whose house faces the pilgrimage road to Futakuchi Kumano Shingū, a local shrine. The estate's formal front is on the west, and the main house turns its face that way.

Three of the four structures, the main house, the stone storehouse and the wooden fence, date from the early Meiji era. The fourth, a plastered storehouse, came roughly half a century later in the late Taishō era, so the Yoshida Family Residence lets you compare two generations of storehouse building on one plot.

Four registrations at the Yoshida Family Residence

All four parts of the Yoshida Family Residence were registered on the same day, with consecutive registration numbers 16-0167 (main house), 16-0168 (stone storehouse), 16-0169 (storehouse) and 16-0170 (wooden fence). At a meeting of the Imizu City Cultural Properties Council on March 28, 2023, the city reported the four registrations.

Each was registered under a different heading. Japan registers buildings that are at least 50 years old under three criteria: contributing to the historic landscape, serving as a model of design, or being hard to reproduce. The main house and the fence fall under the first, the plastered storehouse under the second, and the stone storehouse under the third. One estate covers all three.

The agency dates the main house to 1872, the stone storehouse to around 1872, and the fence to 1872 with repairs in the early Shōwa era; the plastered storehouse dates from the late Taishō era (1919 to 1926). Building areas are 272 square meters for the main house, 49 for the stone storehouse and 42 for the storehouse, and the fence runs for 40 meters.

How the Yoshida Family Residence is laid out

The main house of the Yoshida Family Residence fronts west. The wooden fence wraps around its west and south sides in an L along the property line, with a gate for honored guests in the middle of the street-facing west side; the south run borders the garden in front of the formal rooms.

Both storehouses stand to the east, behind the main house: the stone storehouse, used for rice, directly east, and the plastered storehouse, used to keep household implements, to the southeast. Each has its ridge running north to south and its door on the west.

Read together, the agency's notes describe a plan built in depth: the street, the gate in the fence, the tall gable of the main house, and the storehouses beyond. Each building has its own page with construction details.

Visiting the Yoshida Family Residence

According to the minutes of the Imizu City Cultural Properties Council from March 2023, the general incorporated association Yoshida-han, which manages the Yoshida Family Residence, aimed to make it a place open to the local community and planned to begin public opening in June 2023. The city also set aside funds that fiscal year for an information board.

We could not find any current notice of opening days, hours, admission fees or reservation rules. Check with the Imizu City Board of Education or local tourism offices before you go. Outside announced opening days, stay off the property and view the buildings from the street.

The nearest station is Etchū-Daimon on the Ainokaze Toyama Railway. The main house of the Yoshida Family Residence lies about 850 meters south-southwest of the station in a straight line, a figure calculated from map coordinates; the walking route is longer.

Names and spellings for the Yoshida Family Residence

The registered names are Yoshida-ke Jūtaku Omoya (main house), Ishigura (stone storehouse), Dozō (storehouse) and Itabei (wooden fence), following the readings given by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. In English the estate is the Yoshida Family Residence.

Several other properties registered under the name Yoshida Family Residence exist, in Niigata and Osaka Prefectures among others, so this site groups the four Imizu buildings as Yoshida Family Residence (Imizu). The agency lists the address as 1953 Umawatari, Futakuchi, Imizu City, and other lots.