In the early 17th century, Sozaemon Abumiya was a big shipping agent in Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture. He was the chairman of 36 members of the town assembly. The prosperity of his shipping business was mentioned in Nippon Eitaigura, a famous novel written by Saikaku Ihara during the Edo period.
This residence, reconstructed in 1845, is a good exapmle of a typical merchant house from that period.