A Private Residence By Makoto Tanijiri, Facing Mount Yotei

Property Highlights:

The site spans 1,000.02 sqm of freehold land — designated as undeveloped/wilderness land, with no use-district designation and generous building parameters of 40% coverage and 200% floor-area ratio typical of Niseko’s less-constrained mountain terrain. Two public roads bound the property, at widths of approximately 10.4 metres and 10.9 metres respectively, with frontage lengths of approximately 3.2 metres and 30.76 metres — a rare depth of access for a parcel of this scale. Natural hot spring water can be drawn directly to the site, a privilege that few properties in the region can offer.

The residence itself is a work by architect Makoto Tanijiri, founder of MIETELL and of SUPPOSE DESIGN OFFICE — realised under AWAI, his ongoing exploration of a new relationship between architecture and life. A two-storey timber structure of 282.16 sqm total floor area (with an additional basement level), the house is conceived as a study in contrast: a dark, restrained volume set against white birch and snow, its glazed upper storey opening directly onto Mount Yotei. Two bedrooms and a tatami-floored Japanese-style room are joined by an open living-dining space beneath a concrete ceiling and full-height glass, while a private onsen sequence — preparation room, sauna, water bath, indoor bath, and open-air bath — unfolds around a courtyard of stone and birch. Dressing rooms, ample storage, and a design permitting operation as licensed lodging complete a residence built equally for solitude and for scale.

Every room is oriented toward the mountain; every material — concrete, oak, stone — is chosen to age quietly into the landscape it borrows from.

¥725,000,000. Freehold. Completion scheduled for summer 2027.

The Neighbourhood:

Kabayama sits within Kutchan’s quasi-city planning zone, protected under both a special-use conservation designation for surrounding agricultural and forest land and the town’s landscape preservation ordinance for the Kabayama district — safeguards that ensure the birch forest and open sightlines to Mount Yotei remain undisturbed for the long term. Hirafu Station, and with it the energy of Niseko’s village core, is approximately three minutes by car or twelve minutes on foot — close enough to reach, distant enough to forget.

New Chitose Airport is approximately two hours by car, linking the property directly to Sapporo and onward to Tokyo and international gateways across Asia. Development in the immediate surroundings remains deliberately sparse, preserving a setting defined by forest and mountain rather than by commercial density.

Why TonTon:

This is the kind of asset that does not reach the open market through conventional channels. As the exclusive Japan licensee of Forbes Global Properties, TonTon operates at the precise intersection of deep local knowledge and a truly global network — giving our clients access not only to properties of this nature, but to the discretion, due diligence, and cross-border expertise that a transaction of this significance demands.

Our advisory team brings together backgrounds in international finance, Japanese property law, and cross-border transaction management — fluent at a native level in Japanese, English, Mandarin, Hindi, and Korean. From corporate structure establishment and tax advisory coordination to post-acquisition asset management, we provide end-to-end support across the full acquisition journey.

For clients whose ambitions extend beyond the visible, our private portfolio awaits.