Sauna House, Amagi Kōgen

Amagi Kōgen Bessouchi, Izu, Shizuoka, Japan

Barrel SaunaForest SettingRenovated

€53,300

2 bedrooms · 1 bathroom · 55 m² interior

Why We Selected It

Sauna House, Amagi Kōgen, context detail

This one arrives finished, and it sits in the part of Izu most visitors drive past. Amagi Kōgen is the peninsula's high spine — beech and cedar forest around 800 m up, where summer stays cool while the coast swelters. Kitchen, bathroom and floors have already been redone, and the previous owner added the thing most houses here are missing: a proper sauna, indoors and a barrel outside, with a deck laid out in the trees to cool off on. The estate, Amagi Kōgen Bessouchi, is managed, so the roads and surroundings stay in order. It is small — 55 m², two bedrooms — but every square metre has been used, and there is nothing you must fix before the first night.

The Home

Sauna House, Amagi Kōgen, interior detail

Two-storey timber house, freehold · Renovated — approximately 48 years old

A renovated 2LDK timber house with its own indoor and barrel saunas, high in the Amagi highlands of central Izu — 45 minutes from the Pacific beaches, half an hour from the onsen town of Shuzenji, around 2.5 hours from Tokyo. €53,300.

Two-storey wooden house, approximately 48 years old, renovated throughout.
Modernised kitchen, bathroom and flooring.
Indoor sauna plus a newly installed outdoor barrel sauna.
Wide wooden deck set out among the trees.
2LDK layout: two bedrooms with living room, dining room and kitchen.
Timber-framed interiors with exposed beams and open ceiling.
Large windows on the forest from both living and dining rooms.
Within the managed Amagi Kōgen Bessouchi estate.
Izu Kōgen Station approximately 16.5 km away — about 35 minutes by car.

Life Here

The sauna

One inside, one barrel outside, and a deck in the trees between them. It is the daily ritual of the house.

The highlands

At roughly 800 m in the Amagi mountains, this is Izu's cool centre: clear nights, moss and beech forest, and relief from the coastal heat in August.

Onsen nearby

Shuzenji, one of Japan's oldest hot spring towns, is about 30 minutes north. Jōren Falls and the Amagi Pass, where Kawabata set 'The Izu Dancer', are closer.

The coast

Both shores of the peninsula are within an hour: Itō and the east-coast beaches about 45 minutes away, the wilder Nishi-Izu coastline a little further west.

Getting here

A car is the natural way to live here. Tokyo is roughly 2.5 hours by road; the estate itself costs ¥85,800 a year to manage, with water at ¥2,250 per month.

Our Perspective

Why it works

A renovated forest house with two saunas in the cool highland centre of the Izu peninsula, at €53,300 — with no immediate work to budget for.

Ownership case

Izu is one of the closest resort areas to Tokyo — about two and a half hours by road — and the highland belt around Amagi stays cooler than the humid coast in summer, which extends the comfortable season. The house is finished and already has two saunas, so it could be let to short-stay guests from the first day with no renovation outlay.

What makes it special

Altitude. Most Izu listings are on the humid coast; this one sits in the cool centre, with a deck and a barrel sauna in the woods that houses at this price simply do not have.