Shiraishi Family Residence Kimono Storehouse

The Storehouse That Held the Stock

The Kimono Storehouse of the Shiraishi Family Residence (白石家住宅呉服蔵, Shiraishi-ke Jūtaku Gofukugura) is an 1888 plaster-walled storehouse in Miyaichi-cho, Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, entered on Japan's Registry of Tangible Cultural Properties on 2 November 2018 under registration number 35-0100.

It stands behind the main house on the western side of the compound, its ridge running north to south. The structure is dozo-zukuri, the thick-walled fireproof construction developed for merchants who needed to protect stock: an earthen core, then coat after coat of lime plaster carried right up to the eaves. Two storeys, a gabled roof of sangawara pantiles, 49 square metres of ground area.

A ridge tag names the carpenter as Horie Senjiro and dates the work to 1888, the twenty-first year of Meiji. That is thirty years earlier than the main house, and by a different hand. The storehouse came first; the grand residence in front of it came later, once the business had grown enough to pay for Kyoto carpenters.

Miyaichi was a commercial crossroads long before either building went up. The district formed as the approach town to Hofu Tenmangu, founded in 904, and in the Edo period the San'yodo trunk road met the Hagi Okan, the route the Mori lords used between their castle town and the sea. The Kobe family's house a short walk away was designated the official inn of Miyaichi post station in 1642. A kimono dealer in this town had customers arriving by two roads.

Why It Was Registered

The storehouse was accepted under the registration criterion covering buildings that contribute to the historic landscape of the country. This is the criterion applied to structures whose value lies in what they hold together visually and socially rather than in singular artistic achievement. The Tool and Food Storehouse on the same site was registered under the same heading on the same day; the main house was registered under a different criterion, as a model of design quality.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs assessment describes the building as an ancillary structure that conveys something of how a kimono business actually operated. That phrasing is worth taking seriously. A merchant's storehouse is evidence of trade in a way that a reception room is not. Bolts of silk are vulnerable to fire, damp, insects and light, and the money tied up in stock at any moment could exceed the value of the house. The plaster shell, the small openings, the single controlled doorway: all of it is a specification driven by inventory.

One feature drew particular attention. The roof frame is a wagoya, the Japanese post-and-beam roof type, but built in an unusual way. Beams of octagonal section carry squared timbers stacked above them, and those in turn take the purlins. Octagonal beams are not standard practice. The published record does not explain the choice, and the assessment simply calls the form distinctive; a regional habit, a carpenter's preference and the reuse of timber already to hand are all possible explanations.

The building was refurbished in 2015. According to the owners, the interior was reworked while the exterior and the primary structure were left as they were, which is the balance the registration system is designed to encourage.

Looking at It, and Being Inside It

Read the walls from the top down. Just under the eaves runs a hachimaki, a thickened band of plaster that reinforces the vulnerable junction where wall meets roof. Below it a mizukiri throws rainwater clear of the surface. Both are practical details that also give a plain white wall its horizontal rhythm, and the two storehouses on this site can be told apart by them: the kimono storehouse has the drip course, its neighbour has a single narrow band instead.

The doorway sits at the northern end of the east face, sheltered by a geya lean-to. The doors are the hinged double-leaf type, thick as a bank vault and shaped so the plaster faces close into a continuous seal. The owners give the building's dimensions as 9.45 metres along the ridge and 4.81 metres across, figures that put its footprint at roughly the size of a generous modern living room stacked twice over.

The interesting thing about this storehouse is that it did not become a relic. It is now used as a venue, and the family runs a recurring programme of concerts in it; the spring edition held in March 2026 was the fifty-eighth in the series. The owners also make the space available for other events on request. A room built to keep silk away from light and damp turns out to suit chamber music rather well, since the same mass of plaster and earth that steadied the humidity also steadies the sound.

Access is the practical constraint. The compound is closed to the public most of the year and opens roughly twice annually, in spring and autumn, alongside the shop's exhibitions; dates appear on the Shiraishi Gofukuten website and Facebook page. Yamaguchi Prefecture's tourism service lists bookable programmes that include a guided walk through the registered buildings, and a concert or event booking is the other reliable way in. Photography inside is at the household's discretion, so ask on the day.

From JR Hofu Station, leave by the Tenjin exit on the north side and walk about twelve to fifteen minutes. The shop front is on the street; the storehouse is behind, out of sight from the road, so an exterior view means getting inside the gate.