A warm, bright and comfortable Japanese farmhouse, just five minutes from Goryu.
Old Japanese houses like Tamaki, known as kominka, have a reputation for being dark and freezing cold in winter. By thoroughly rebuilding and insulating the house, we have turned that stereotype on its head.
Tamaki is warm, bright and comfortable — perhaps comfortable enough to make getting out for first lift a little harder than it should be.
Tamaki faces due south from an elevated position overlooking the valley. Sanosaka Snow Resort can be seen across the rice fields from the windows.
On clear winter days, sunlight streams into the house.
The house is also very private. There are no neighbouring holiday rentals looking directly into the property, so you can enjoy the views without feeling overlooked.
Location & getting around Hakuba →
Tamaki retains the atmosphere and huge timber structure of an old Japanese house, but the rebuild added the insulation and draught-proofing expected of a modern home.
Underfloor heating provides a constant baseline temperature and helps prevent the house becoming cold overnight, even when outside temperatures fall as low as around −17°C.
You can then adjust the warmth to suit yourselves using the woodstove, air-conditioning units and portable heaters.
The woodstove is simple to use and gives the living space a special atmosphere in the evening. Our portable heaters are particularly useful in bedrooms because they are quiet and do not use fans, so there is no moving air while you sleep.
Read about the renovation →
After skiing, there is space to dry gloves, jackets and boots, warm up around the woodstove, cook together in the large kitchen and soak in the bath.
Tamaki is only a short drive from Goryu, so getting back to the house and settling in for the evening is easy.
Check availability & book direct →Tamaki sits against the side of a hill, which gives the house some protection from Hakuba’s cold northerly winds. On exposed parts of the valley, those winds can be fierce enough to affect ski-lift operations.
The garden, however, is a much friendlier place to experience the snow.
There is plenty of room for children to build snowmen, and we provide sledges for riding down the snowy steps beside the house. The road outside carries very little passing traffic, which helps the property retain its quiet, secluded feel even during the busiest winter weeks.
For a particularly Japanese winter evening, we recommend cooking nabe hot pot together and then soaking in the bath.
Nabe is one of Japan’s great group meals, with countless variations. These range from delicate beef shabu-shabu and sukiyaki, pictured above, to hearty combinations of pork, fish and vegetables cooked in miso, sesame or dashi-based broth. More modern versions may use ingredients such as kimchi and Korean chilli.
After dinner, our bathroom has a hinoki soaking tub where you can rest tired legs after a day on the mountain. Open the window and you can feel the cold winter air while soaking, for something approaching a rotenburo outdoor-bath atmosphere.
And if your legs still complain afterwards, there is always the massage chair.
Unlike a real onsen massage chair, you do not need to feed it ¥100 coins.
Private, spacious and five minutes from Goryu — with the character of an old Japanese farmhouse and the comfort of a modern mountain home.