Why Atami.
Because the sea and the mountains meet here,
and hot springs have run for more than a thousand years.
Because the fireworks go up over the bay,
and the back streets still remember the Showa years.
Because Izu and Shizuoka open from here,
and Tokyo is under an hour away.
The town
Mountains behind, the sea in front,
hot springs underfoot.
Few towns in Japan hold this much in so small a space: hot springs Tokugawa Ieyasu came to bathe in, a bay that fills with fireworks some fifteen nights a year, Showa-era arcades and old kissaten, festival floats in July, and a camphor tree older than all of it. Behind the town rise the Hakone mountains; to the south, the whole Izu peninsula opens up. And all of it is 40 to 50 minutes from Tokyo by shinkansen.
Your host
Forty prefectures later,
home is Atami.
Your host has travelled to more than forty of Japan's forty-seven prefectures, and lived elsewhere in Asia and in the United States, before choosing to settle here. Few places we know put so much of Japan within reach of one front door, and we truly believe Atami and Hakone are among the best places in the country to feel it.
Living here means knowing which morning the bay is clearest, which festival night is worth coming down the hill for, and where the locals eat. That is what we want you to have: not a visit to Atami, but a few days of living in it.
Tell us what you like and we'll plan the days with you, book what's hard to book, and point you to the places we'd take our own family. Children are always welcome.
- Languages
- Japanese and English; Hindi; some Arabic
- Travelled
- More than 40 of Japan's 47 prefectures
- Loves
- History, traditional crafts, the sea and the mountains
- Food know-how
- Vegan, gluten-free and Muslim-friendly dining
- Replies
- Within a few hours, 9:00–24:00 Japan time
Your host, Atami Umihoshi
Making the house
Over eight months,
many hands.
We fell for the view first, and for the house around it second: a photographer's home and gallery studio of red brick, walnut and glass, looking straight out over the bay. Over the next eight months and more, we made it ready for you with local craftsmen.
A tatami craftsman from Shimizu, in Shizuoka, turned the old atelier into Room A, in hinoki and Ryukyu tatami with an engawa to the garden. The deck is pine and hinoki. We chose the new furniture piece by piece for a house on the Shizuoka coast, built some of it ourselves, and filled the shelves with the scrolls, prints and tableware you'll find around the house. And while the work went on, we walked the coast and the mountains, planning the days out we now share with our guests.
Walk it room by room, and the small things inside
The name
Named for the view after dark.
In the Showa years, Atami's lights round the bay drew honeymooners from all over Japan. This house looks down on that same million-dollar view from high on the hill, quiet and private. From the upper deck you watch the bay go from blue to gold to ink, the town's lights come on along the shore, and then the stars come out over the Hakone mountains and the Izu coast. That hour named the house. Umi is the sea and hoshi the star. Written 海星, the same two characters usually read hitode, starfish, so the mark is a sea star rising over three lines of water, held in a ring like a family crest.
海星うみほしひとで
Read it umihoshi, not hitode.
- 1The ringThe crest frame of a Japanese family mon: one even line that holds the mark together.
- 2The sea starFive soft arms with a slight curl: a living sea star, and five-fold like the plum-blossom crest.
- 3The waterThree lines that shorten towards the bottom, like the last light on the bay.
- 4The gapThe star floats above the water and never touches it: the moment the sea turns to stars.
From · before tax¥18,000a guest a night+10% tax = ¥19,800 ·
Reserve