"Even his mother, Machiko Imai, now in her seventies, recalls spending her childhood at the two-story house, where the upper floor was once used for cultivating silkworms and weaving silk threads. So when Machiko inherited the house from her father - Matsukane's grandfather - after his passing in 2020 at the age of 103, they began thinking about how to honor the house's legacy."
"The sprawling property is over 200 years old and consists of a main house, two gardens, and several smaller outbuildings. It's about two and a half hours outside Tokyo, either by car or by train. The last time anyone lived there full-time was in the early 1900s, Matsukane said. But subsequent generations took care of the house, so the interiors were in good condition."
Matsukane Imai grew up spending summers at his family's traditional two-story house in Okaya, Nagano, enjoying rural pastimes like insect collecting, watching fireflies, and playing with fireworks. The upper floor historically hosted silkworm cultivation and silk weaving. Machiko Imai inherited the over-200-year-old property from her father after his 2020 death, and the family resolved not to sell. The estate includes a main house, two gardens, and multiple outbuildings and remained in good interior condition despite no full-time residents since the early 1900s. An acquaintance suggested converting the ancestral home into a guesthouse, prompting a multi-year renovation effort.
Read at Business Insider
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