Niseko Between the Snows

In winter, Niseko belongs to the skiers. Come August, with the snow gone and the crowds along with it, Hokkaido’s celebrated resort gives way to pasture, birch forest and a slower, greener kind of luxury.

This August there was no snow, and so no conversation about it. Pasture unrolled beside the road, then a lake, then long stands of birch, and once a deer that lifted its head to watch us pass. Two hours went by in the particular trance that Hokkaido’s roads seem to induce.

For years I knew the road from New Chitose Airport to Niseko only in its winter dress. The fields were white, the sky was white, and talk in the car never strayed far from snow: how much had fallen overnight, what the morning would bring, whether Annupuri would ski better than Hirafu.

We had come north the way Tokyoites do every summer, in retreat. There is a week each year when the capital’s heat ceases to be weather and becomes a way of life. Walks are measured against shade. Restaurants are chosen by their proximity to the station. Air-conditioning outranks every other amenity in the city. Hokkaido restores the half-forgotten idea that August might be pleasant.

Niseko out of season took some adjusting to. I had always imagined Hirafu, its liveliest village, as part Scandinavian mountain town and part Alaskan outpost, though in winter its Australian, Asian and international crowds make such comparisons moot. Condominiums, bars and food trucks line its streets, and everyone appears to be on their way somewhere, ideally with skis on one shoulder. In August, the streets were all but deserted.

“I’m so not used to this,” I admitted to Eric, our concierge from the villa specialist Elite Havens. “I usually only come in winter.”

The confession amused him. “Niseko is really nice in summer, actually. You get to see more of nature and experience what real life is about,” he said. “I think experiencing Niseko in four seasons is a really good idea.”

It struck me as the sort of thing locals like to say. Within days, I was a convert.

The House in the Trees

Soga Forest Chalet stands in open countryside at the foot of Mount Annupuri. Niseko Village and Annupuri are a short drive away, and Moiwa is closer still, yet Soga belongs to another Niseko entirely. On the approach the traffic falls away, the houses grow sparse and the forest closes in.

The chalet rises tall and charcoal-black from the trees, its exterior so spare it verges on austere. Anyone expecting the Alpine archetype, with its carved balconies, hulking stone chimneys and drifts of fur throws, will be disappointed. I was not. The house reserves its drama for the upper floor.

We lived almost entirely in one vast room beneath a vaulted timber roof. Heavy beams span the ceiling, and great white paper lanterns hang above an eight-seat dining table. The kitchen claims one end of the room, the sofas and fireplace the other. Photographs convey the scale. They cannot convey the way the forest comes inside.

Windows run along every wall and climb into the gable, and in August they held little but leaves. Morning coffee came with a view straight into the canopy. At lunch the trees stood at our backs. As the afternoon wore on, the room shifted with the light. The walls are left nearly bare, and before long it was clear why. No canvas could hold its own against what lay beyond the glass.

The style has been called Japandi, that marriage of Japanese restraint and Scandinavian warmth worked out in timber and muted tones. The label mattered less to me than how well the place was made for living. The sofas sit exactly where you want them. The table invites you to spread out. And the kitchen is a cook’s kitchen, unlike the immaculate, ornamental ones so many holiday houses install on the assumption that no guest will ever lift a pan.

A Table of One’s Own

In Niseko, a kitchen like that counts for more than it might elsewhere. When I asked Eric which guests favor Elite Havens’ private villas over the apartments it also manages, he answered without hesitation.

“For families, the villas are, of course, always the better option,” he said. “They have more privacy, more space, and they have a proper kitchen and dining facilities to cook their own food.”

After a beat, he offered the argument that carries the day in ski season. “If they don’t wish to cook, they can always ask our Niseko Gourmet chefs to prepare something for them,” he said. “Just family and friends having a wonderful time over dinner, and perhaps drinks by the fireplace.”

Anyone who has tried to book a table in Niseko in the depths of winter will understand the appeal. The town has some genuinely fine restaurants, but getting into them takes planning, and dining out nightly with a family grows costly with alarming speed. After a long day on the mountain, the prospect of showering, dressing and coaxing everyone back into the cold soon loses its charm.

Besides, this is Hokkaido, and staying in is hardly a sacrifice. The island’s beef, seafood, produce and dairy justify the journey on their own. Niseko Gourmet will stock the chalet before you arrive, deliver dinner to the door or send a chef to cook in the house, whether the evening calls for sushi and sashimi, tempura, soba or a long, elaborate tasting menu.

Our most memorable dinner involved far less ceremony. Eric had arranged shabu-shabu, and while we were out he let himself in with a generous bowl of finely sliced Hokkaido beef, vegetables and noodles, arranging everything around the pot on the dining table. We came home to find nothing left to do but sit down and light the burner.

I had set him one further task. “I have a sweet tooth,” I’d told him earlier. “Do you think we could get something local for dessert?”

“Of course,” he said. “The best thing here is the Hokkaido ice cream.” There was also, he mentioned, a local shop that sold cakes by the slice. Which would I prefer?

I did not deliberate long. “The Hokkaido ice cream, of course.”

After dinner I opened the freezer to find a tub of superb local ice cream and, beside it, a jar of strawberry jam to spoon over the top.

I remember that evening more clearly than many an elaborate restaurant meal from other trips. We were still in the clothes we had worn all day. No one was waiting on our table. The pot simmered between us while, beyond the glass, the forest slipped into darkness. For a few days we had, in effect, a house of our own in Hokkaido, with the singular advantage that Eric always seemed to arrive before we did and leave dinner waiting.

When the Snow Returns

The house had practical virtues too, and they grew more persuasive the more I pictured coming back in winter with family in tow. Three bedrooms give everyone room to retreat. The ground-floor primary suite has a soaking tub that looks out into the forest, with a second bedroom nearby and a third upstairs. Underfloor heating, a washer and dryer, a garage and a sensible place for skis and snowboards complete the picture.

Its seclusion gave me pause, I admit. A villa in the woods is idyllic until you find yourself the designated driver to the lifts. Elite Havens smooths much of that away, arranging airport transfers, equipment rental, lift passes, ski and snowboard lessons, restaurant reservations and winter shuttles. A masseuse will come to the chalet, as will dinner, as will a chef. Privacy here need not mean fending for yourself.

The Green Season

In August, though, there was little that needed arranging. We drove without an agenda. Niseko Takahashi Dairy Farm lay a couple of kilometers from the door, and the Niseko Village golf course was nearer still. There were farm stands and cycling routes, hiking trails and hot springs, among them the gloriously rustic Goshiki Onsen on the far side of Mount Annupuri. Niseko Town was less than five kilometers away.

Hirafu was farther off, a distance I came to cherish. When we wanted restaurants and company, we drove there. When we didn’t, we turned back toward Soga.

This, it turned out, was what I had been missing all those winters. Without skiing to dictate the shape of each day, you begin to see the place rather than the resort. Fields I had only ever passed under snow revealed themselves as working farms. Mountains I knew as ski runs were green from base to summit. The small roads threading between villages, once mere routes to a lift, became worth exploring for their own sake.

Eric had spoken of real life. Perhaps that overstated the case, given that we were living in a rather beautiful chalet in the woods, but I understood him now.

One afternoon we came back early and did nothing whatsoever. No one proposed a better use of the day. I sat upstairs with the great windows open to the forest, and having nowhere I wished to be seemed reason enough to have come all the way to Hokkaido.

The irony was that by the end of our stay, my thoughts had drifted back to snow. It was impossible to gaze through those windows and not conjure January: the same trees bowed under white, skis and boots stowed downstairs, wet gloves drying, all of us trudging home from Annupuri spent and ravenous. Upstairs it would be warm. Someone would open the wine. We would set a pot in the middle of that long table and linger there all evening.

And this time, before we ever reached the slopes, I would remember to ask Eric for the ice cream.

About Elite Havens

Elite Havens rents out private, fully staffed luxury villas and chalets across Asia, from Bali and Phuket to the Maldives and Japan. In Niseko, most of its chalets are in the quiet Soga area at the foot of Mount Annupuri, and there are more in Niseko Village and Hirafu.

• Stay: Choose from ski chalets, larger lodges and apartments. The villas suit families and groups who want space, privacy and a full kitchen.
• Arrive: The concierge team can arrange a private transfer from New Chitose Airport, about two hours away.
• Eat in: Niseko Gourmet can stock your kitchen before you arrive, deliver dinner, or send a private chef to cook in the chalet.
• Ski: Staff can book lift passes, equipment rental, lessons and winter shuttles.
• Relax: In-villa massage and restaurant reservations are a call away.
• When to go: The chalets are open year-round, for powder in winter or green, uncrowded summers.
• Book: elitehavens.com

Read more about the best places to stay in Hokkaido in Travelife Magazine