How a Hong Kong architect and interior designer made their home in a breathtaking green retreat in Japan
“What are you wearing on your feet?” Ng checks, ensuring that I’m appropriately shod to explore the steep, double plot on which he and Ngan have built the one-bedroom house amid a cluster of structures. Surrounding their latest project and their “old” house, bought in 2018, are larch, cherry and pine trees that provide an everchanging backdrop of colour.
We set off from Ng’s study, at the bottom of an internal staircase, and from there head outside and continue our descent. The crunch of gravel accompanies every step we take. First stop: an outdoor, wooden rotenburo open-air tub.
Imagining it brimming with hot water, I sit in the empty bath and survey the trees below and beyond, conjuring the landscape when snow falls. No wonder macaques spend winters soaking and steaming when their world turns white.
Second stop: an open-plan, 688 sq ft steel-and-glass square “greenhouse” about 30 metres from the main house. The pair’s furnished winter hang-out lends itself to music filling every corner, or silence that allows you to hear plant chatter. Among a Finn Juhl chair here, a Hans Wegner there, stag horns commune with potted yucca, succulents and ficus, many of them tilted towards the central skylight
Now that house accommodates lucky guests, many from Hong Kong, curious to see why Ngan and Ng have decided to live and work in Karuizawa while maintaining offices in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Taipei and London. Current projects take in Tai Ping Carpets in Hong Kong, the Four Seasons Hotel Hangzhou at West Lake and the RitzCarlton Hotel in the Japanese capital, an hour away by bullet train.
“I said we want it to feel like a little village,” Ng muses about their aims, recalling how they worked on the new house with Japan’s M’s Architect Design (emuzu.jp) also to optimise views.
Uninterrupted arboreal vistas form the backdrop to many of their rooms. But none is more majestic than that enjoyed from the living room, at the far end of a skylit lofty corridor.
Taking the form of a “great room” – historically, those multipurpose centres of daily activity in medieval castles – the space enjoys glazing on three sides and is cleverly zoned. So although it easily accommodates large numbers of guests, it also serves just the couple, who can unwind in a cosy nook, on the chairs they designed in 2020 for Poltrona Frau.
Positioned to give the impression of a 360-degree outlook, the room centres on a 2.2-metre-diameter, 1960s chandelier with handblown globes that once graced a hotel in Prague, in the Czech Republic, Ng says. Below this vintage light-catcher are several pieces of furniture from their George Nakashima and Frank Lloyd Wright collections. All sit on a chunkyjumper-style Tai Ping Carpets wool rug inspired by Ng’s grandmother, a knitter.
Other attention grabbers here are a Poul Henningsen-designed grand piano, itself a collectible sculpture. And beside it is a free-standing circular fireplace by artist-blacksmith Mitsuo Nishida. The commissioned piece comes with curious kawaii, or cute, cast-iron squirrels.
If at first the cute accessories seem out of place in such an elegant setting, their value soon becomes apparent. The owls, monkeys, roosters and other creatures add lightheartedness to this and surrounding rooms that might otherwise read “look, don’t touch”.
A similar playful strategy can be found even in the comparatively austere tatami room. This calm retreat is on the more intimate west side of the house, and accessed through the dining area, which itself segues into the kitchen. On this side, ceiling heights come down from the loftiest five metres found towards the east.
While the cedar-clad interiors hold your gaze wherever you look, the wooded scenery takes your breath away.
Little wonder that during the pandemic Ng came up with a special photographic project that was unveiled at the Milan Furniture Fair in 2022: he photographed the forests blanketing the mountains in seasonal hues, capturing their ephemerality for a special Calico Wallpaper series.
None of his dreamy images graces the new walls, however.
“Why don’t we have the wallpaper here?” he asks with a laugh.
“We have the real thing right in front of us.”
Living room
The 1970s hotel chandelier, with brass fixtures and handblown globes, is by Czech-based lighting-design company Preciosa (preciosalighting. com). Beneath it is a coffee table and two Greenrock ottomans by George Nakashima (nakashimawoodworkers.com). Joining the pair is an Egyptian Stool, by Ole Wanscher for Carl Hansen & Søn (carlhansen.com).
Elsewhere on the rug, from the Pom-Pom collection designed by AB Concept (abconcept.net) for Tai Ping Carpets (taipingcarpets.com), are side tables by Peter Hvidt and Oria Mølgaard-Nielsen for France & Son (franceandson.com).
By the windows, the free-standing fireplace was custom made by blacksmith Mitsuo Nishida (pageone33.ec-net. jp). In the corner is a custom-made Poul Henningsen grand piano from PH Pianos (phpianos.com) and a Batlló Chair by Antoni Gaudi from BD Barcelona (bdbarcelona.com).
By the stone fireplace is a Papa Bear Chair (also known as the Teddy Bear Chair) by Hans Wegner, available from Manks (manks.com). Paired with it, on the other side of the rug, is a Janus wingback chair and ottoman, by Edward Wormley for Dunbar (collectdunbar.com).
In the left-hand corner, around a crystal Chêne table from Lalique (fr.lalique.com), are a pair of Viola chairs, designed by AB Concept for Poltrona Frau (poltronafrau.com). At the fore of the photo, the Sengu sofas, by Patricia Urquiola, were from Cassina (cassina.com).
Greenhouse
To the right of the Logi Soapstone Oven from Heta (heta.dk) is a ringed wooden sculpture by Portuguese sculptor Paulo Neves (paulonevesescultor.com). In front is another Hans Wegner Papa Bear Chair. To the far right is a Finn Juhl Pelican chair and far left are a Hans Wegner net rocking chair and an antler chair that Terence Ngan bought as a student years ago. A mobile by Alexander Calder (calder.org) hangs near the ceiling. The stone lion, Lejon Maxi, was by Swedish ceramicist Lisa Larson, who died in March at the age of 92.
Dining room
The dining area centres on furniture that moved with the couple from their house next door. It includes a George Nakashima dining table and armless settee plus two vintage Hemmakväll armchairs by Carl Malmsten (carlmalmsten.se). Overhead is a Petra III chandelier from Christopher Boots (christopherboots.com).
Tatami room
The George Nakashima table and Conoid chairs are suitably low for the west-facing tatami room, featuring a playful screen by manga artist Shiriagari Kotobuki (saruhage.com). In the corner is a Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesin floor lamp (franklloydwright.org).
Kitchen
On the west side of the house is the kitchen, with Boffi fittings (boffi.com). Caesar Stone was used for the countertops, including for the island, on top of which is a ceramic bowl by Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum (tichelaar.com), the Netherlands’ oldest ceramics company.
Bedroom
Facing east, the bedroom enjoys never-ending mountain views. Graphic Colzano woollen fabric, by Carlucci (carlucci.jab.de), was used for the double-height curtains to add cosiness to the room. The FK 87 Grasshopper Chair is by Fabricius & Kastholm for Lange Production (langeproduction.com). The Kai Kristiansen kidney-shaped writing desk (kaikristiansen.com) is from the 1950s. Near the windows, the table lamp is by Louis Poulsen (louispoulsen.com).
Study
A painting, titled Le Père et L’enfant (2009), by Patrice Besso, hangs above Ng’s desk in his study, a concrete cave clad in cedar and furnished with vintage items (his desk included). Sculptures by Javier Calleja (@javicalleja) are in a glass display on the desk. The Chinese antiques were bought many years ago near Beijing, China.
Little village
Ngan and Ed Ng’s “little village” consists of the dark original house and their new house, with a separate wing beside it housing the garage and gym. Towards the bottom of the plot is the glass greenhouse.
Tried + tested
Just because it’s the smallest room in the house, doesn’t mean it cannot be furnished beautifully. With that in mind, Ng and Ngan placed a 1950s desk, by Kai Kristiansen (kaikristiansen.com), in the powder room on the ground floor. They also decorated the space with a vivid piece of glass art, made locally, and inspired by the stained glass found in the churches of Karuizawa. The other artwork, on the desk, was bought during a holiday in Koh Samui, Thailand, and the provenance of the stool is unknown.
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