Hagihara Family Residence West Shop

What Is the Hagihara Family Residence West Shop?

The Hagihara Family Residence West Shop (萩原家住宅西店舗) is a late Edo-period (1830–1868) shop building in the old post town of Katsunuma-juku, Koshu City, Yamanashi Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2018.

Read Hagihara-ke jūtaku nishi tenpo, it forms the street front of the western lot that the Hagihara family added after buying the eastern one. It stands shoulder to shoulder with the East Shop and Main House on the old Koshu Kaido, and the West Zashiki is joined to its rear.

A Shallow Shop Only Three Ken Deep

The West Shop is a 2-story timber building with a tiled Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof running east to west and a lean-to Geya roof across the front. With a building area of 86 m², it is less than half the size of the East Shop and Main House next door.

Its most striking feature is how shallow it is. The building is only three ken (about 5.5 meters) deep and stretches along the street. The ground floor is the mise, the shop floor, and the upper floor holds a zashiki room. With a living room and formal rooms in the West Zashiki behind it, the street-front building could concentrate on trade.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to the late Edo period and records a renovation in 2012. Koshu City believes it was standing by 1881 at the latest, when Hagihara Gensuke bought the eastern lot.

Lattice, Lifting Shutters and a Great Door

The front of the Hagihara Family Residence West Shop keeps a full set of post-town shop fittings: a lattice over the openings, agedo shutters that are raised to open, and a large ōdo entrance door. The Agency singles out how well this frontage survives.

Agedo were hoisted up during the day to open the whole shopfront to the street and lowered at night, letting the shop use its full width. Koshu City explains that the great doors of Katsunuma-juku combined paper-screen and board doors that swung up or slid up, and the West Shop is a textbook case.

Why It Was Registered

The Hagihara Family Residence West Shop was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Building) in 2018 under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the nation. The Agency notes that, together with the East Shop and Main House, it forms a continuous streetscape of the former post town.

The two buildings originally belonged to separate properties, yet with lattices across both fronts they read from the street as a single shop front. Because the West Shop survives, the whole Hagihara frontage on the highway keeps its historic appearance.

Visiting the West Shop

The Hagihara Family Residence West Shop is privately owned and normally closed. Its lattice and shutters can be seen from the old Koshu Kaido. Stand where it meets the East Shop and Main House and compare the tiled roof of the West Shop with the sheet-metal roof next door, and the two lattices: the traces of two separate properties become clear.

Take photos from the street and avoid capturing the windows of the living quarters or the residents.