Yamanouchi Family Residence Storehouse

About the Yamanouchi Family Residence Storehouse

The Yamanouchi Family Residence Storehouse (山内家住宅蔵, Yamanouchi-ke Jūtaku Kura) is a 2-storey earthen-walled storehouse built around 1931 in Sakaemachi, Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on April 25, 2014. It stands in the northwest corner of the Yamanouchi Family Residence, covers 29 square metres, and was altered sometime between 1946 and 1965.

It has a gabled (Kirizuma-zukuri) roof of interlocking pantiles and white Shikkui plaster walls, with a thickened plaster band, the hachimaki, running beneath the eaves and vertical boarding around the base. The Yamanouchi Family Residence Storehouse anchors the west end of the street front, with the gate just to its east.

Why It Was Registered

The Yamanouchi Family Residence Storehouse was registered as No. 35-0088 under the criterion for structures that contribute to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs says it pulls the estate's frontage together.

Its position explains why. The north side is the face the estate turns to the street, and a two-storey white block at its western end gives the long, low line of gate and wall a vertical full stop. With the single-storey main house set far back in the plot, the storehouse is the tallest thing a passer-by sees.

It is also a properly fire-conscious building. The hachimaki band thickens the top of the wall to protect the eaves, and the upper windows close with copper-clad doors to keep embers out. Storehouses like this held a family's most valuable goods, and the details show it.

What to Look For

Look at the north wall of the Yamanouchi Family Residence Storehouse: two upper-floor windows, each shut by a single copper-clad door and sheltered by its own small hood. Because that wall faces the road, these windows are the storehouse's public face, two dark metal squares set into white plaster.

Then drop your eye to the base. The vertical boards protect the plaster from rain splash and scuffing, and the change from white wall to timber adds one more horizontal line to the elevation.

The working side is hidden. The ground-floor door opens to the south, into the grounds, under a small lean-to roof, and the stair rises along the north wall inside.

Visiting

The Yamanouchi Family Residence Storehouse belongs to a private home and is not open inside (checked September 26, 2026). You can view it from the north street.

From the road you can make out the two windows, the plaster band and the boarded base; the doorway and lean-to on the south side are out of sight. Since the storehouse stands right beside the gate, shoot from across the street so you are not photographing into the grounds.