The Homma family built their fortune on the kitamaebune -- the coastal trading ships that linked Osaka to Hokkaido during the Edo period, carrying rice, safflower, and other goods along the Sea of Japan coast. Sakata was a critical waypoint on this route, and the Homma clan dominated its commerce through trade and moneylending. By the Meiji period, they had become one of the largest landowners in the entire Tohoku region of northern Japan. Junji Homma, the fourth family head, channeled that wealth into culture. A noted collector of Japanese swords and chairman of the Nihon Bijutsu Token Hozon Kyokai, he built the original residence in 1813 as a place where art and power could meet under one roof.

The Seienkaku villa served as the family's secondary residence and guest house, and its guest list reads like a roster of Japanese nobility. Members of the Sakai and Uesugi clans -- former daimyo of the Shonai and Yonezawa Domains -- passed through its rooms. In 1908, a second story was added to the wooden structure in preparation for a planned visit by the future Taisho emperor. When the future Showa emperor visited in 1925, the villa had already established itself as a place where political power and merchant wealth intersected with studied ease. In 1947, the family opened the residence as a public art museum, and a modern annex followed in 1968, creating a dialogue between Edo-era timber architecture and twentieth-century gallery design.

The museum's collection of some 2,500 objects spans centuries and media. Among the treasures are a Kamakura-period edition of the Ise Monogatari and three other designated Important Cultural Properties of Japan. The paintings alone chart the arc of Japanese art history: works by Kano Tan'yu, the master of the Kano school; Nagasawa Rosetsu, known for his playful animal compositions; Ito Jakuchu, the eccentric genius of Kyoto; and Kuroda Seiki, who brought French Impressionism home to Japan. Beyond painting, the collection includes Goryeo celadons with their distinctive jade-green glaze, raku ware by Chojiro -- the founder of the raku tradition -- lacquerware, sculptures, and delicate Japanese traditional dolls. Shiba Kokan, Matsumura Goshun, Okada Hanko, and Kishi Ganku round out a roster of artists that any national museum would envy.

Outside the museum walls, the Kakubu-en -- the "Dancing Crane" Gardens -- hold a designation as a National Place of Scenic Beauty. The garden employs the Japanese technique of shakkei, or borrowed scenery, drawing the distant profile of Mount Chokai into its composition so that the 2,236-meter volcano becomes the garden's backdrop. The effect collapses distance: the meticulously pruned trees and stones in the foreground merge seamlessly with the snow-capped peak on the horizon, making the garden feel infinite. It is a living artwork that changes with the seasons, from the heavy snow of Yamagata winters to the lush green of summer, and it embodies the same principle that guided the Homma family -- that true wealth lies not in what you own, but in what you see.