315-yr old residence converted into corporate retreat
A 315-year old samurai residence in Kamakura has been converted into a training retreat by a local business support organization.Read more
Dentsu sells off estate including Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house
Advertising giant Dentsu Group is selling off two large estates in Tokyo and Kamakura for a combined 30 billion Yen (approx. US$271 million) to an undisclosed buyer. The Tokyo property includes one of just two surviving Frank Lloyd Wright-designed homes in Japan.
Art museum to open on 43-acre estate in Kamakura
A prominent jewelry company has been selected to open a jewelry-themed art museum on a 43-acre estate in Kamakura. The city-owned land was originally owned by the Nomura Research Institute (NRI) and was donated to Kamakura City in 2002.
Sales in luxury Kamakura condo to start in August
Sales in a high-end condominium in the heart of historic Kamakura City are scheduled to start in late August. The Parkhouse Kamakura is a 5-story luxury condo currently under construction alongside Wakamiya-Oji Avenue which leads up to the Hachimangu Shrine. It is the first condo to have been built within a 5-minute walk of Kamakura Station in the past ten years. This is also the first condominium developed by Mitsubishi to feature their full, underfloor central-air system.
Jiro Osaragi’s former residence in Kamakura on the market
On October 9, the Kanagawa Shimbun newspaper reported that the former residence of author Jiro Osaragi (1897-1973) in Kamakura is for sale. The 100-year old traditional thatched roof house is designated by the city as an important scenic structure. The owners are hoping to find a buyer that will continue to preserve the culturally significant and historic home.
Kamakura has less than 1,000 hotel rooms
Despite welcoming over 20 million annual tourists, Kamakura, a historic beachside city an hour by train from central Tokyo, has a surprisingly small number of hotel rooms. The mountain resort town of Hakone, also in Kanagawa Prefecture, has the same level of tourists but as many as 8,000 hotel rooms. Kamakura has just 980.
Kamakura modernist museum to re-open this June
After a lengthy refurbishment and retrofit, the former Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, will officially re-open as the Kamakura Bunkakan Tsurugaoka Museum on June 8. The iconic modernist building was designed by Junzo Sakakura (1901-1969) and opened in 1951 as Japan’s first public museum of modern art.