THE designer behind the Sekka brand, Shouya Grigg (pictured below), has built a dream home at Hanazono, between Hirafu and Kutchan Town. Powderlife spoke to Shouya about how the new home embodied his ideals of a luxury lifestyle, and why he believed more people would be interested in building outside the villages on larger blocks of land.
Can you tell us about some of the designs and specifics of this new project?
The house is 500sqm, so it’s a decent size. There are a lot a very high ceilings, it’s quite an extravagant use of space – not cramming everything into 500sqm. The house is only five bedrooms. It’s got a lot of outdoor inner zones, where there are water features and undercover outdoor terraces. The exterior is coated in corten steel, and there is a lot of use of glass, bringing in the surrounding nature.
Paint us a picture of what sort of environment exists on your block of land.
You can glance outside and look at the nature and see how that harmonises with the house. All the power lines are buried so you don’t see any wires – all you see around you is pine trees, birch trees, green fields, mountains and blue skies, and that’s important. It even has an 85m bore well with pristine mountain spring water that doesn’t need to be filtered.
How big is the block, and where is it?
The size of that actual property is 15,000 tsubo – about 50,000sqm, or 5ha – so it’s quite a big block. It overlooks the Hanazono Bokujou (farm). I think the Hanazono side is much more pristine than this side of the mountain, because it’s much less developed, and the average block size is much larger. The whole Hanazono master plan looks interesting, but even without that it’s just a beautiful area. It’s also very convenient being so close to Kutchan – you can drive straight to Kutchan without going through a traffic light. When the Shinkansen bullet train comes through you will be able to drive to the Kutchan Shinkansen Station, park your car and be in Tokyo in a few hours, or Sapporo in 20 minutes.
What sort of lifestyle can be enjoyed on this property?
I wouldn’t normally call this a typical home, but it would suit me and my lifestyle in that it’s a place I could live with my family, but at the same time it’s a work space. It’s a place you could wander through and look at art that’s on the walls, and antiques and statues and sculptures. But also the home is specifically a gallery/studio/office, it’s also a work space so being in amongst that type of surrounding, you could think and come up with interesting new ideas and concepts. It’s a home but it’s also a gallery – the type of home you can show art and antiques.
Will this house be a model home for similar developments?
Obviously the home will be a showpiece for the quality and styling I can produce as part of the Sekka brand. In a sense it’s what I would do anyway – I’m fortunate I’m in this area and I can utilise it as a showpiece. What’s happened in Whistler, and other big international ski resorts is you have the epicentre next to the lifts, and some people want ski in-ski out, but usually you have the hotels and lodges and the commercial businesses around that. Maybe for some people who are very wealthy they want a house in amongst that, but what I gather is that many really wealthy people want a home, and they often have something that’s five or 10 minutes outside the epicentre with a multi-million dollar home on that with a couple of cars. And they don’t just go in winter, they go in the green season too.
What is good about living outside the main villages?
The village has a purpose and it’s got a certain buzz, but there’s a certain lifestyle you cannot achieve by living in this. When you build an apartment in the village it’s somewhere you spend a week or two in the winter and a week or two in the summer, but building a big house outside the village is more of a lifestyle choice, somewhere you can spend more time.
Do you think the Niseko property market is maturing to this level?
I really do believe the market is evolving and maturing and there are people who want to have a nice home on a nice property that’s a bit larger, whether that means half an acre to an acre, or up to five to 10 acres. There’s still a lot of beautiful land around Hirafu. I believe it will mature to the stage where people from Hong Kong and China and these closer regions will want to have a home within five to 10 minutes drive from the ski fields. But maybe people will start to want to have a home on the coast, so they come here in winter, they get up and drive to Niseko or drive to Kiroro to ski during the day, then drive back. I really think it will get to that stage.