Tanaka Family Residence Parlor Storehouse

A Storehouse with a Parlor Inside

The Tanaka Family Residence Parlor Storehouse (田中家住宅座敷蔵, Tanaka-ke Jūtaku Zashikigura) is an early Meiji-period earthen storehouse in Jinba, Yamagata City, Yamagata Prefecture, fitted with formal rooms on its ground floor and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2008.

A zashikigura is a storehouse whose interior has been finished as a zashiki, a tatami reception room, rather than left as bare storage. This one stands behind the main house and is joined to the north side of the house's nando storeroom through a kuramae antechamber, so the family could pass from house to storehouse without going outdoors.

It measures 9.1 metres by 5.1 metres, with a building area of 53 square metres, and is built in dozo-zukuri earthen-wall construction over 2 storeys. The entrance is on the gable end, in the tsumairi manner, and a geya lean-to is attached on the north side. It is the largest of the three storehouses on the property.

Why It Was Registered

The Tanaka Family Residence Parlor Storehouse received registration number 06-0107 in the 61st round of national registrations, dated 2008/10/23, as a model of design. Only the main house shares that criterion on this property.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to two things. The ground-floor suite of connected rooms has zashiki-kazari, the alcove, shelves and other built-in fittings that set a formal room's rank, of fine design. And the roof is carried on an unusual framework of straight timbers. From outside it looks like any fireproof earthen storehouse; inside it holds a proper reception suite and a carefully worked roof structure.

What to Look For

A floating roof and white plaster

The gabled roof is clad in iron sheet and built as an okiyane, a separate roof set over the sealed earthen body of the storehouse. The gap between the two keeps rain and snow off the clay ceiling and lets air move above it, a common arrangement on Japanese storehouses. The walls are finished in shikkui lime plaster, with shitami-itabari clapboard around the base to take the splashback and wear.

Formal rooms behind thick walls

The ground floor is a run of connected tatami rooms. Published records do not describe which fittings the zashiki-kazari include or how they are arranged, but the decision to build a formal reception suite inside a storehouse says the Tanakas treated this building as a special place.

Straight-timber roof framing

Farmhouse roofs in Japan often rest on beams cut from naturally curved logs. Here the roof framing is built from straight members, which the Agency describes as distinctive. The tool storehouse on the same property is noted as having the same framing, a sign that the two storehouses were built to a shared idea.

Visiting

The storehouse is part of a private home and is not open to visitors; as of October 2026 we found no announcement of open days. It stands behind the main house and is unlikely to be visible from the street.

The photographs in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database are the best way to see the Tanaka Family Residence Parlor Storehouse.