An artist's house
above Atami bay.

The upper deck belongs to Room C and the full house, and it has the widest view in the house. In the morning, Hatsushima sits on a flat blue sea, and on a clear day Izu Oshima shows on the horizon beyond it. Late in the day the sky over the bay turns gold, then rose. At night Atami's lights run the whole curve of the shore, and on the clearest winter nights the stars come out over the sea. Bring a blanket, turn the lamps off, and stay.

The deck reaches out over the garden towards the sea, and at its edge, under the plum tree, sits the outdoor Jacuzzi. It's big enough for two and filled with heated tap water, kept warm in every season. It isn't a hot spring and we never call it one; for those, your host meets you in town. What it has instead is the view. In February snow settles on the deck boards and the plum bends over the water, and once or twice a winter you can sit in warm water with snow on your shoulders. In March the clouds pile up over the bay. In August the plum throws its shade across the loungers at noon, and the cicadas are louder than the sea. Take turns, then lie back on a lounger and let the house light up behind you through the glass. The tub is yours at any hour; after 21:00, when the hill goes quiet, keep voices low for the neighbours.

The garden runs down the slope in front of the house: a plum by the deck, white camellias by the wall, a camphor, and hedges of maki and yamamomo that have been growing for thirty years and now reach past the upper floor. The plum came from Kagoshima. It was a gift from the previous owner's father when the house changed hands, and every February it is the first thing on the hill to flower, dark red, with a scent that stays in the air. The camellias follow in March. By May there is green fruit you can cup in your hand, and in June we pick it with whoever is staying and tell you how the house makes its umeshu. A local gardener looks after all of it, and knows each tree by its age.

Upstairs, at the end of the corridor, the bathroom has a wall of glass and nothing in front of it but trees, a few roofs and the whole of the bay. The tub is a deep white oval set in black stone, long enough to lie back in, and from it you watch the weather cross the water: grey and soft on a September afternoon, gold at five on a clear day, then blue and black as the town's lights come on. There's a shower behind glass, a hinoki pail and stool, and a powder room with a basin and good light for the mornings. On the marble tray: ReFa shampoo and treatment, and an Aesop body cleanser. On full-house nights the bath is yours at any hour. On other stays we agree the hours with you when you arrive, usually three or four hours in the evening, and longer if you ask.

A door of cedar opens off the bathroom into a small, hot, fragrant room: a bench for two, a heater of dark stones in a steel basket, and a slatted floor that's warm underfoot. The heat brings the smell of the cedar out of the walls. Ten minutes in, then out to a cool shower with the bay in the window and a glass of water, and back again; three rounds is where most people settle. It comes with the full house, and like the deck tub it's yours at any hour.

A Coleman Roadtrip gas grill, big enough for a party of ten, free to use. It waits at the foot of the outside stair and rolls out onto the deck, where the town's lights come on along the bay while you cook. Bring your own food, or tell us a day ahead and we'll order meat and seafood from a partner butcher or fishmonger who delivers and bills you directly. Your host sets it up, shows you how it lights and where the gas cartridges are, and leaves you to it. Tongs, plates and glasses are in the kitchen, and the cover goes back on before 21:00, when the hill goes quiet. The house doesn't cook or sell meals.

The room's spine is a single long table of walnut, set on the line from the brick wall to the garden glass. It seats the whole party, and it's where every day here starts and ends: coffee and fruit in the morning, laptops in the afternoon, dinner from the harbour at night, under a white dome lamp that makes everyone look well. People who come for a weekend set up a second screen at one end and start asking about a week. When you're the last ones up, it's where the cards come out, and the window at the end of the table goes from blue to black to the first grey of morning.

Behind the table, the living room: a low L-shaped sofa, a shelf of photography books and prints built into its back, an old brick wall with a 75-inch screen for the nights you want a film, and a pellet stove for cold days. On the February afternoon it snowed, the stove burned for hours beside the glass while the plum outside bent under the weight. A brass lamp leans over a coffee table shaped like a river stone. Someone is always reading here, and someone else has always fallen asleep. The streaming apps are ready on the screen; sign in with your own account.

An island with three gas rings under a black hood, a long counter that seats four on stools, and everything you need to cook for ten: a fridge, a microwave and an oven, a rice cooker, a T-fal Cook4me, a Cosori air fryer, a DeLonghi coffee machine, a kettle and a tea set for the mornings, knives that are sharp, and tableware we chose one piece at a time. Bring home what you found at the harbour that morning or picked up in town; there's room at the island for everyone to help, and a dishwasher for afterwards. We don't cook for you. This is a kitchen for you to use, or a counter to lean on with a glass while someone else does.