About This Property for Sale

This property consists of a traditional farmhouse and a separate warehouse/workshop.

According to the family genealogy that has been preserved, the history of this house dates back to the late 17th century. It began as a farmhouse, later serving both as a residence and as a base for work that supported the local water infrastructure.

Around 50 years ago, the property was surveyed by architectural researchers. Records from that study remain, including interviews with master carpenters, measured drawings, and photographs.

Boundary confirmation and land and building registration arrangements have now been completed. Here, three elements come together: archival records, an actual historic building, and practical groundwork for future use.

About This Place

Notobe-shimo is a historic settlement in Nakanoto Town, located in the central part of the Noto Peninsula.

It once developed as a local hub along an old trade route through which people and goods passed. Today, many administrative and commercial functions have moved to the outskirts, and the settlement has taken on a quieter character.

At the same time, old streets, shrines, and historic buildings still remain, revealing how the settlement developed over time.

The Noto Peninsula is commonly divided into three areas: Kuchi-Noto, the southern gateway to the peninsula; Naka-Noto, its central area; and Oku-Noto, the far northern and more remote part of the peninsula. The 2024 earthquake caused particularly severe damage in Oku-Noto.

Notobe-shimo is located in Naka-Noto, and even within this central part of the peninsula, the area has retained a comparatively coherent group of historic streets and buildings. Together, they continue to convey a sense of continuity in Noto’s way of life and architectural culture.

This property is located within the Notobe-shimo settlement.

About the Buildings

The site contains two buildings:
the main house, built in 1910,
and the warehouse/workshop, built in 1962.

The main house was used as a residence, while the warehouse/workshop served as a workplace supporting the local water infrastructure.
Together, the residence and workplace preserve the relationship between daily life and livelihood in this community.

Architecture of the Main House

The main house is a single-story Azumadachi-style building, a type found in the Noto region. Although it has been altered over time to suit daily life, its key spatial and architectural elements remain: the entrance, formal rooms, hearth-centered layout, posts and beams.

The property also preserves the traditional Noto timber-framing technique known as sashimono-zukuri, in which massive posts and beams are joined by precisely crafted wooden joints rather than nails, forming a substantial timber frame. This distinctive construction method developed in the Noto and wider Hokuriku region and remains one of the defining features of its vernacular architecture.

It is said that timber was once cut from the family’s own mountain and used for the construction and maintenance of the house.

The warehouse/workshop has a different character from the residence. Its large timber interior may be adapted for storage, crafting, research, or other uses, subject to the necessary renovation and regulatory requirements.

Part of a Major Architectural Research Project

In the mid-1980s, a large-scale interdisciplinary research project was carried out by researchers from eight universities, led by architectural scholar Yoshichika Uchida.

The research team divided its work across a wide range of fields, including structural systems, construction methods, building production, extensions and alterations, settlement form, and architectural history. Fieldwork also involved researchers from additional universities and institutions.

The project was conducted in close cooperation with local residents, carpenters, joiners, sawmill operators, roofers, lacquer craftsmen, tile makers, educators, and shrine representatives. Through measured surveys, interviews, photographs, and historical investigation, the research documented not only individual buildings, but also the wider network of skills, materials, production, and community life that sustained Noto’s vernacular architecture.

This property was one of the houses included in that research. The resulting archive is therefore not simply a record of one house, but part of a broader documentation of an entire regional building culture.

Shrines and Streets

Notobe-shimo is a settlement shaped by the interrelationship of streets, shrines, farmland, and houses.

Japan has roughly 80,000 Shinto shrines nationwide. Doburoku brewing is permitted at only about 30 of them. “Doburoku” is an unfiltered rice wine traditionally brewed in local communities, and remarkably, three of these shrines are located in Nakanoto Town.

This unusual concentration reflects the area’s deep connection with rice cultivation, local ritual, and fermentation culture. Here, shrines are not simply historic landmarks; they remain part of a cultural landscape in which agriculture, belief, food production, and community life have long been closely intertwined.

Buildings, streets, shrines, farmland, and people’s activities overlap here. This layered regional structure is one of the defining characteristics of the place.

Future

The floors, water-related facilities, and other parts of the buildings will require renovation according to their next use. The property retains its principal timber structure, together with records of regional research and local building culture.

Possible future uses may include research, activities related to food or fermentation culture, or small-scale accommodation. Any future use will be subject to applicable regulations, approvals, and renovation requirements.

Document Archive

This archive contains architectural survey materials on vernacular houses, settlements, and building techniques in the Noto region, mainly compiled between 1985 and 1994.

The materials amount to more than 1,000 pages in total and include architectural research papers, house data sheets, measured drawings, structural diagrams, and survey photographs.

They are primary materials that document the architectural culture and local society of the Noto region from multiple perspectives.

What is Recorded

This property was one of the houses documented as part of a large-scale architectural survey of the Noto region conducted from the 1980s to the 1990s.

The research did not treat vernacular houses as isolated objects. It examined them as part of a wider regional system shaped by settlements, materials, building techniques, craftspeople, production networks, and changes in everyday life.

The archive includes materials on the following topics:

• Formation of settlements and townscapes

• Structural systems and timber framing of vernacular houses

• Sashimono-zukuri, a traditional timber-framing method using precisely fitted wooden joints

• Interviews with master carpenters, craftspeople, and local residents

• Timber procurement, sawmilling, construction processes, tools, and local building production

• Production and installation of Noto roof tiles

• Relationships among materials, craftspeople, skills, and regional production networks

• Histories of extensions, alterations, and changes in residential life

• Measured drawings, house data, structural diagrams, and survey photographs

These materials document not only the physical form of individual buildings, but also the flow through which timber, skills, labour, and local knowledge came together to create, maintain, and transform Noto’s vernacular architecture.

At a time when the structural and production systems behind traditional wooden buildings had received relatively limited scholarly attention, the project sought to understand them as a dynamic ecological system rather than as a collection of static architectural remains.

Selected Images from the Archive

Building and Archive, Passed On Together

The materials presented on this website form part of an extensive body of research and survey records connected with this property and the wider architectural culture of the Noto region.

The purchaser will receive the complete archive as digital data. These records include not only measured drawings, photographs, and architectural studies, but also documentation of the materials, skills, craftspeople, production networks, and community relationships through which the building was created, maintained, and transformed.

This property therefore offers something unusual: the surviving building and the records that reveal the living system behind it can be passed on together.

The aim is not simply to preserve a historic structure as a static object, but to carry forward the knowledge, relationships, and regional context that gave it meaning.