Obara-Ya Harada Shoten Storehouse

One Shop Storehouse, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property since 1999

Obara-Ya Harada Shoten Storehouse (小原屋原田商店店蔵, Obaraya Harada Shoten Misegura) stands at 1714 Kajikazawa, Fujikawa Town, Minamikoma District, Yamanashi Prefecture, an Edo-period building entered on the register of tangible cultural properties on 7 June 1999. It is a registered property rather than a designated one.

The quantity is one building.

The structure is of earthen construction, two-storeyed, tiled, with a floor area of 78 square metres. The date field reads Edo and the year field about 1856.

A Storehouse That Is Also Shop and Dwelling

A building made in the manner of a store houses trade and daily life.

The Agency records the front of the ground floor as the shop and the upper floor as living rooms, with fine lattice windows across the front: a traditional arrangement.

Earthen construction means walls thickly plastered with clay to resist fire. In that construction, trade goes on below and living above.

At the Kusumori Kahoku residence, the charcoal room has 3 rooms below and living rooms above: a store with rooms for people added.

Here the building opens a shop onto the street. The store becomes the face of the house.

Fine lattice windows are made of slender bars set close. They run across the upper front.

Drawn Back from the Main Street

It has been moved from where it stood without being taken down.

The Agency records that it once faced the main street and was drawn back in 1960 when the road was widened.

To draw a building back is to move it whole, without dismantling. An earthen two-storeyed building was pulled back to make room for the road.

The former Yamanaka main house was given to a city and moved to a park; the gassho-style house was carried across prefectures ahead of flooding.

Here it moves back on its own ground: a removal without taking apart.

It is a building that opens onto the street. As the street widened, its distance from the street changed.

Built About Ten Years After the Business Began

The start of the trade and the date of the shop lie close together.

The Agency records a merchant house said to have been founded in 1846.

The date field for this building reads about 1856: some 10 years after the founding.

The oil, salt and document storehouses on the same grounds are dated across a range, 1830 to 1867. Only the shop storehouse is given a single approximate year.

At the Yoshida main house, the house is said to have been built on the adoption of a son-in-law: a building answering to an event in the family.

Here a shop building follows the beginning of a trade. In both cases the account is given as what is said.

Visiting

The building stands at 1714 Kajikazawa, Fujikawa Town, Minamikoma District, Yamanashi Prefecture.

The Agency records that the town prospered on river transport, and that the house dealt chiefly as a broker in salt and other goods.

At 78 square metres it falls in the middle of the 5 buildings on the grounds; the oil storehouse covers 152 square metres and the new reception room 31 square metres.

The oil, salt and document storehouses and the new reception room on the same grounds were registered on the same day.

No owner is recorded, and opening and terms follow the owner's arrangements. Check before travelling.