Hiroshi Sakaguchi: Barn raising the Japanese way
A Japanese remodel
In 1985, I introduced Hiroshi Sakaguchi, a Japanese master carpenter, to Jacques and Denise Tenzel. Jacques and Denise, good friends of mine, wanted a traditional Japanese remodel of their house nestled in the redwoods east of Albion, Mendocino County. The house was taken down to the foundation and rebuilt by Hiroshi. The finished work can be seen in the first interior picture on Hiroshi’s website. The project was inspiring, and Jacques and Denise became good friends of Hiroshi in the process.
A reclaimed material bonanza
In 1989, Jacques was planning to build a 48’ x 48’ traditional western post and beam barn that he had designed. He had already handpicked all the framing materials from the salvage of the Samoa Lumber Mill pier, Humboldt County, which was taken down around 1987. Those timbers were all 12” x 12” old-growth redwood up to 26’ long, bought and delivered to Albion for 27 cents a board foot. The balance of the post and beam framing materials were 6” x 16” x 24’ Douglas fir beams from the old school house in Eureka, which were eventually glued together to make 12" x 16" x 24' cross-members. The siding for the barn was 1" x 12" clear old-growth redwood boards cut from logs salvaged from the mud of the Navarro River.
Jacques’s friend, John Turner, living further up Albion Ridge, brought over his Wood-Mizer mobile band saw mill and they cut some of the 12” x 12” in half for the 6” x 12” headers, then again for the 6” x 6” posts for along the barn shed walls and then again for the 3” x 3” purlins.
Hiroshi saves the day
With timbers at hand, Jacques was looking for a contractor to do the framing, but the cost was going to be prohibitive. Jacques discussed the dilemma with Hiroshi, who was visiting at the time, and Hiroshi offered to build a post and beam barn using mortise and tenons and scarf joints in the Japanese joinery tradition.
In July 1989, Hiroshi returned to the site. Jacques taught Hiroshi to drive the Massey-Ferguson tractor to move all the beams around for cutting all the joints, and arranging them in the field, ready for the barn raising. Along with the joinery, Hiroshi also made two large wooden mallets out of Laurel wood to be used to pound the joints together in the barn raising. Working at a furious pace, cutting out the entire joinery package, including marking all the joinery ends with his Japanese symbols, took Hiroshi only two weeks.
Hiroshi with chisel in hand
Joinery with location markings
Taking a well earned rest
Let the barn raising begin
After the footings and slab were poured for the barn, Jacques reached out to his friends to take part in the barn raising. A motley, yet enthusiastic crew of loggers, woodworkers, carpenters, and others turned out on a drizzly October weekend. Hiroshi led an inspiring master class in assembling a post-and-beam structure. We were all in awe of his technical abilities as well as his special brand of Japanese machismo leadership, shimmying up posts, walking across wet beams, and swinging the mallet. Even though the loggers were well experienced at moving heavy lumber, Hiroshi made light work of it, along with the help of an A-frame on a 1953 Chevy truck used to raise the heavy 12” x 16” x 24’ beams 18ft in the air.
The barn was raised in two days. The following week, Hiroshi, Jacques, and Mo finished the roof framing, and the week after, the siding was on.
Hiroshi on a beam with the Laurel mallet he made
That's me in the white shirt
Raising a post
Securing a post
Using a crane in a 1953 Chevy truck
Chevy truck lift completed
Hiroshi in the middle of the image keeping an eagle eye in the proceddings
Hiroshi on the middle beam
Posts, beams, and rafters all in place
Here is the finished barn in the following spring
The following winter with the corner of the remodeled family home on the left
A rich history of community building
A barn raising describes a collective action of a community, in which a barn for one of the members is built or rebuilt collectively by members of the community. Barn raising was widespread in 18th- and 19th-century rural North America.
For me, it was a special occasion, having been part of two traditions: the European and American tradition of barn raising, and the high art of Japanese Joinery.
Two books by Azby Brown offer further insight into Japanese traditions. Just Enough: Lessons in Living Green From Traditional Japan shows us that there was also a “house raising” tradition in 18th and 19th-century rural Japan, and The Genius of Japanese Carpentry: Secrets of an Ancient Craft will throw light on the Japanese joinery tradition.