Sakurabayashi Family Residence East Document Storehouse

What the Sakurabayashi Family Residence East Document Storehouse Is

The Sakurabayashi Family Residence East Document Storehouse (櫻林家住宅東文庫蔵, Sakurabayashi-ke Jūtaku Higashi Bunkogura) is a two-storey earthen storehouse from the late Edo period in Miyaharacho, Kofu City, Yamanashi Prefecture, and was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on 7 August 2023 (registration no. 19-0169). It is attached to the north side of the inner reception wing of the Sakurabayashi homestead, the house of a family of physicians since the Edo period.

The national database dates the Sakurabayashi Family Residence East Document Storehouse to the late Edo period, which it gives as between 1830 and 1868. That makes it the oldest of the five registered buildings and, according to the database, the oldest structure on the site. The reception wing it adjoins was built in 1912, so this storehouse had been standing for more than half a century before the formal rooms went up beside it. It was extended around 1967.

It is built in the dozo manner under a gabled (kirizuma) roof of sangawara tiles, with the ridge running east to west. At 43 square metres it is the smallest of the three storehouses. The database describes it as a store for household goods.

Why It Was Registered

The Sakurabayashi Family Residence East Document Storehouse was listed for its contribution to the historic landscape. The national database notes that, as the oldest building on the site, it carries the historic character of the homestead.

The Sakurabayashi were already a medical family in the Edo period, and this storehouse is the building that demonstrably survives from that time. It predates the Meiji gatehouse and the reception wing and west storehouse added at the end of the Meiji era, and it is the best clue to what the property looked like before them. The fact that the later reception wing was built to join onto it suggests that the new formal rooms were planned around an existing storehouse.

What to Look For

The walls are finished in Shikkui lime plaster with a base course of nezumi shikkui, plaster darkened with soot or ash to a mouse grey. The grey is used low on the wall, where dirt and wear show first. White above and grey below give the building the sober two-tone face of a traditional storehouse.

Look also at the footing. The Sakurabayashi Family Residence East Document Storehouse stands on a continuous strip foundation of laid brick. Brick under an Edo-period storehouse may point to later work, but the published sources do not say when the foundation was built.

The Tomae entrance bay is on the south face and has a boarded floor. Inside, each level is a single board-floored room, linked by a stair in the southeast corner. It is the plainest and most compact of the three storehouses.

Visiting the East Document Storehouse

The Sakurabayashi Family Residence East Document Storehouse is part of a private home and is not open to the public. It stands inside the property on the north side of the reception wing, so it is hard to see from outside, and the grounds are closed to visitors.

There is no published policy on photography. The location of the property is covered on the Sakurabayashi Family Residence page.