Japanese farmhouses (kominkas) are world famous for their harmonious architecture, massive hardwood beams and exquisite carpentry. Now a Swedish eco-builder with a 30-year history rescuing heritage buildings in Sweden, Bali and Thailand is relocating landmark homes from remote villages in Western Honshu and restoring them in Niseko, Hakuba and other resorts in Japan.
“Everything we do is the result of wonderful happenstance,” says Nils Wetterlind, sitting in his traditional machiya shophouse office in Kyoto, where Heritage Homes is based.
“My great-grandfather spent many summers in Lappland, laying hiking trails in the early part of the last century,” says Nils. “He bought up several old log cabins from the Saame people and had them moved to what is now a ski resort. We still have those ski lodges.
“My grandfather then bought old grain houses and had them moved to our farm in the archipelago and converted them to guest cottages. And my cousin and I moved our first timber house from Finland to Stockholm in the 80s. So I guess it’s in the blood.
”The love for old timber houses has always been there and, for us Swedes, moving a house is not a big deal
In Bali during the early part of the millennium, Nils’ company, Tropical Homes, was the first developer to install solar panels and use reclaimed timber to build their resort villas. It was on a buying trip to Java that he discovered beautiful old abandoned teak houses called Joglos, and started shipping them to Bali to restore and convert them.
It’s therefore no great surprise that when Nils and his Japanese wife and children moved to Japan in 2019, he decided to use his decades-long experience in property development and his lifelong love for old wooden houses to start Heritage Homes.
“I’m hardly the first person to realise the absurdity of having thousands of empty, beautiful houses all over the countryside and at the same time spending precious resources to build new ones somewhere else. There’s little point in restoring a building if it’s in a location where nobody wants to live. So let’s move them! It really isn’t more complicated than that.”
Perhaps, but relocating a 150-year-old timber house from the mountains of Honshu to Hokkaido and rebuilding it as a luxury, modern residence is no easy task. Just the dismantling of the intricate timber structure itself takes a team of six to eight carpenters several weeks.
Everything is laser measured and fed into a CAD system so that Heritage Homes’ architect can reconfigure the floor plan to suit the client’s needs. Columns and beams have to be lengthened to increase ceiling heights. Damaged wood has to be replaced. Load-bearing columns have to be moved to fit the new layout. Roofs often have to be re-built from scratch.
All of this work is done at Heritage Homes’ two workshops in Honshu, employing master carpenters whose skills go back for countless generations.
”Not a single nail is used in a traditional Japanese farmhouse
“Everything is joined and everything fits. It’s a beautiful thing to watch it all come together. It’s wonderful to give new life to these buildings, a responsibility that we take very seriously. The oldest farmhouse on our books has been in the same family for 16 generations.”
After the restoration is complete the carpentery team travels up to the site in Niseko (or wherever the client’s land is) to assemble the building and put the roof on before a local construction team can take over and do the fit-out of the building.
Heritage Homes follows Swedish insulation and building energy standards, which are vastly more rigorous than the local Japanese regulations require. The company uses 300mm eco fibre insulation, triple glazing and heat exchange pumps for heating and cooling rather than the standard kerosene heaters and aircon units.
Every single project Heritage Homes undertakes is custom made. No two farmhouses are ever exactly the same, and no two customers have the same needs and wishes. Thus, client involvement is the most important aspect of Heritage Homes’ work.
“We don’t do cookie cutters,” says Nils. “There are plenty of people who sell standard, one-size-fits-all properties.”
”At Heritage Homes, we love working closely with our clients to create exactly the kind of home they want, something that they can be proud of and pass on to future generations
“A Japanese farmhouse is a unique, culturally important part of this country’s heritage. It’s our privilege and passion to restore and recreate these wonderful buildings and to give our clients a very, very special home in Japan.”
This article appeared in Powderlife 2023
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