AKIYA nehemiah

We are a Japanese and Australian couple who bought this abandoned house for $1000, flipped it and transformed it into a vacation rental house. We hope this house will be a haven for people living in Japan to escape city life and for foreigners to experience life in a small Japanese country town.

This is how the story began↓

Feeling Lost

We were living in Tokyo at the time. Stressed out and fed up with the complexity of city life and business relationships. That’s when we decided to take off on a “detox” tour of Japan (that was our excuse to go on a vacation with no end goal in mind).

Our guide was Google Maps where we spotted a lovely place in Tokushima (on Shikoku Island) named “uchi no umi” (my very own sea). It sounded so enlightening that we just had to take the 18 hour drive to see it. On the way there we needed to cross the Akashi Kaikyo Ohashi Bridge from the main island of Japan to the north tip of Awaji Island. That was the pinnacle moment, when we decided this is the place we belonged.

Acting on Instinct

The next day we drove directly to a real estate agent and asked if they had any really cheap houses. We had no savings (still don't) nor a plan, but we felt that there was something here for us. 5 million yen, definitely too expensive, 2 million yen, still too expensive. We were shown several houses until the real estate agent pulled out a photo on his computer (as a joke), “by the way there's also this house”. All we could see were the weeds, there was no house to see. We fell in love with it immediately.

Seeing the House

The next day we went to see it. You could only see the top half of the entrance door, 10 years worth of sand had collected and on top of that was a thriving jungle. We managed to squeeze through the tin door at the back, navigating our way past years and years of rubbish (I think the owner was a hoarder), and entered through a window.

It was perfect.

This abandoned house (AKIYA) was just 100,000 yen.

We bought it and moved to Awaji Island the next month. The owners thanked us for taking it off their hands.

Losing Hope

It took a week of pulling weeds to even see what the outside walls looked like. Hauling sand and throwing away years of rubbish took another few weeks. It was another year on and off demolishing the ceiling, floor, kitchen, toilet, bath and walls to get it down to its skeleton framework.

The roof was leaking, termites and constant rain had eaten most of the pillars and there was no running water, sewage or gas. 99.9% of people told us there was no hope, that it needed to be torn down.

We had no experience in carpentry or any type of house building (we were fashion designers) so we left it for a few years.

The Journey Starts

In the May of 2018 we decided to use it for a storeroom. In our pathetic attempts to renovate it, a carpenter who lives a few doors away happened to pass by and graciously showed us where we were going wrong.

1st lesson – make a working table

2nd lesson - diagonal wood braces in between the pillars.

At the time all we had was a ¥3,000 circular saw, couldn't even use it properly nor a carpenter's square or cut in a straight line.

3nd lesson – making the grooves of a traditional Japanese “minka” house pillar, then putting the entire house on a jack and replacing each pillar one by one (that was really scary)

4rd lesson – floor framework

Then he left and we were by ourselves from then on.

Living By Faith

From the May of 2018 we quit our fashion label, instead working a part time job, and with the rest of our time gave everything to renovating this house. The goal was that there was none, we were simply and completely infatuated by the fact that we had acquired the skills to renovate this house with our very own two hands.

The intention to transform this building into a rental property came during the process, and after buying and renovating our own house in between, we finally put the finishing touches on this beach house in the first week of June 2020.

Be True To Yourself

This house means more to us than just a means of living. It was the reason we fell in love with this area and with Awaji Island. It is a symbol of what we were able to achieve not by following the status quo, but by being true to ourselves and living our life the way we were created to. This house and its transformation is a miracle from God and is evidence of His promise to us.

We chose the name Nehemiah because like the real Nehemiah we were given an impossible task to do, and through Him we were able to bring this task to completion, a task that was considered impossible by normal standards. In the process we have learnt so much, and are endlessly grateful to all the people whose time and hands and generosity have gone into this project.

Tomoya and I have been given so much and now we want to share some of that with you. We hope that by staying here you will be able to build great memories that will last a lifetime and to just enjoy the experience of life in a little country island town in Japan.

Tomoya (Japanese), Cheryl (Australian), Chestnut (Maltese)

For more on this story please check out our YOUTUBEへ↓