Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Three-Story Storehouse

What the Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Three-Story Storehouse is

The Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Three-Story Storehouse (尾崎林太郎家住宅三階蔵, Ozaki Rintarō-ke Jūtaku Sankaigura) is a 3-storey earthen storehouse built in 1924 in Kuroe, Kainan City, Wakayama Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 12, 2001. The Ozaki, lacquerware wholesalers, kept their stock of lacquer goods in it.

It is a Dozo-zukuri building with a gabled, pantiled roof whose ridge runs east to west, a building area of 64 square meters and three floors inside. It stands between the gatehouse on the road to the east and the main house in the middle of the plot.

The Ozaki property lies just south of the old landing on the Kuroe River, once an important point for shipping by sea, and this storehouse for goods that went out by boat sits right inside the gate, in front of the main house.

Why the three-story storehouse was registered

The Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Three-Story Storehouse was registered as a building that has become a model of its type. The Agency for Cultural Affairs commends its three-level interior and its height, a build it considers well suited to a merchant house.

The other storehouse on the property, the front storehouse, is a 2-storey building of 92 square meters and has the larger footprint. The three-story storehouse stacks a compact 64-square-meter plan three floors high, which gains storage on a small site and gives the house a tall presence just inside the gate.

The ridge-raising offering and the tall silhouette

The date of the Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Three-Story Storehouse is known from the gohei offering used at its ridge-raising ceremony. At a jōtōshiki, when the ridge beam is set in place, a wand of paper streamers is offered, and the date and the names of the owner and carpenter are often written on it or on a ridge tablet left in the roof space. The Agency states that the year of construction is known from this offering, so the date rests on a record rather than on stylistic estimate.

The thick earthen walls are finished, in the photograph on Cultural Heritage Online, in white Shikkui plaster, with small windows and a little roof over the doorway. Three storeys is tall for a townhouse storehouse, and its upright form in front of the low, broad roof of the main house tightens the composition on the east side of the property.

How the three floors were divided, and which goods were kept on which level, is not recorded in the published descriptions.

Seeing the Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Three-Story Storehouse

No information on interior visits to the Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Three-Story Storehouse could be found. It stands just inside the gatehouse on the eastern road, and because of its height the roof or upper floor may be visible from the road, but this has not been confirmed.

Please stay outside the gate. Directions are on the Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence page.