Sakurabayashi Family Residence West Document Storehouse

What the Sakurabayashi Family Residence West Document Storehouse Is

The Sakurabayashi Family Residence West Document Storehouse (櫻林家住宅西文庫蔵, Sakurabayashi-ke Jūtaku Nishi Bunkogura) is a two-storey fireproof earthen storehouse built around 1912 in Miyaharacho, Kofu City, Yamanashi Prefecture, and was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on 7 August 2023 (registration no. 19-0168). It is attached to the west side of the inner reception wing of the Sakurabayashi homestead, the house of a family of physicians since the Edo period.

A bunkogura is a storehouse for books, papers and household valuables. The national database calls this one a store for household goods. Keeping the lacquered tableware, hanging scrolls and other things needed for entertaining right next to the reception rooms was a common arrangement in old Japanese family houses.

It is built in the dozo manner, with thick fire-resistant walls, under a hipped (yosemune) roof of sangawara tiles, and has a building area of 67 square metres. It dates from about the same year as the reception wing, which suggests the two were planned as a pair.

Why It Was Registered

The Sakurabayashi Family Residence West Document Storehouse was listed for its contribution to the historic landscape. The national database describes it as the solid earthen storehouse that defines the west side of the property.

What the Council for Cultural Affairs singled out was the finish of the walls. A conventional storehouse would be rendered in white Shikkui lime plaster. This one is finished in cement mortar, with a base course in jinzōseki togidashi, an artificial stone made by trowelling a mix of cement and crushed stone onto the wall and grinding it smooth once set so that it reads as dressed stone. The technique became widespread in Japan in the early twentieth century. The result is a traditional storehouse form clad in what were then new materials.

What to Look For

Three rows of mizukiri, narrow drip ledges projecting from the wall, run around the exterior. They throw rainwater clear of the wall face, and stacked three high they draw strong horizontal lines across a building that is otherwise a solid block.

The Tomae, the entrance bay with its heavy doors, is on the east face, turned toward the reception wing. The floor of this entrance zone is boarded and the ceiling is a saobuchi batten ceiling of the kind used in formal rooms. Finishing a storehouse entrance to that standard is a sign that the Sakurabayashi Family Residence West Document Storehouse was used together with the reception rooms, not as a detached utility store.

Inside, each floor is a single board-floored room. The surprise is in the roof. Instead of a traditional Japanese roof frame, the upper floor is spanned by a king post truss, a Western-style triangulated frame with a central vertical post carrying the ridge. One of the photographs in the national database shows this structure. Earthen walls outside and an imported roof truss inside make it a characteristic building of the end of the Meiji era.

Visiting the West Document Storehouse

The Sakurabayashi Family Residence West Document Storehouse is part of a private home and is not open to the public. It stands inside the property, attached to the reception wing, so little of it can be seen from the road, 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.