The Family Estate by Adam Brownstein

On a recent sunny Spring morning in Japan I found myself in prison confounded by a monkey on my back.

The jailhouse, as it were, was the first floor hallway of my in-laws’ infamous condominium building in Niigata Prefecture.  I had been banished there per a losing effort of paper/scissors/rock to look after our two-year-old son while the rest of the extended family fretted and tossed to get a few more hours of sleep. We will circle back to the infamous condo in a while, but first the monkey.

The monkey on my back was my said son’s favorite stuffed animal, a cheeky and soft chimp named “Baba”.  It had been the faithful companion of the original Baba, my wife’s maternal grandmother through the last years of her life.  When she passed away at the tender age of 99 last year, she left behind many gifts.  There were the stories of building up a life from scratch from the post-war rubble of Tokyo.  On the material front, parcels of property were distributed to grandchildren and grandchildren alike.  But it was the beloved monkey that somehow captured a bit of Baba’s indefatigable spirit, hence earning the namesake and our eternal love.  My son cannot sleep without Baba in his arms.

On this dawn stroll with Baba clinging to my shoulders and my toddler riding on a luggage cart,  I found myself with plenty of time to think.  The gentle sway of movement, coupled with the early morning light cresting over Mount Makihata made me think back over the years to all of the happy memories here . . . the infamous condominium known in the local parlance as “Plage”.

Like many of Niigata’s alpine towns, the hamlet of Echigo Yuzawa sprang to life in the boom-boom ‘80s.  Flush with optimism and assets (the Nikkei 225 peaked at 60X P/E in 1989), the new Asian super power found it’s post-war generation in search of dachas, bessos and condos to find relief from the sultry summer-in-the-city humidity of Tokyo.  Lacking the pomp and luster of Karuizawa (the “Aspen, CO of Japan”), Yuzawa presented itself as both accessible in distance (a mere 98 minutes by bullet train from Tokyo) and budget (bessos and condos fetched a fair price, even during the bubble).  If Kariuzawa is Nantucket, then Yuzawa is West Harwich . . . in the mountains. 

The original Baba had a knack for real estate, and her painstaking research amounted to a disciplined decision.  She would take up a 500 square foot unit in Plage (pronouced “plaazh”), an eight-story edifice of note that served as a whimsical testament to its age in both style and substance.  Over the decades, my wife’s extended family would make their way to Plage to observe the foliage of autumn, the snowy peaks of winter, the freshly planted rice fields of spring and the vast fields of cosmos blossoms in summer. 

One year into my marriage to my wife, I earned my inaugural holiday at Plage.  During the dawn drive from Tokyo over conbini coffee and curry donuts my wife braced me for what was to come. 

“Baba bought the unit in nineteen-eighty-something, and NOTHING about the place has changed,” she imparted to me. 

“Well, I’m sure that SOMETHING has changed,” I offered.  

“I’m sure you are wrong,” my wife rejoined. 

Passing through the 11 kilometer Kan-Etsu tunnel from Gunma Prefecture into Niigata Prefecture, the full measure of my wife’s warning came into view.  The town of Yuzawa with its unassuming, off-white condominium buildings seemed harmless enough.  But, like the Sesame Street diddy, one of these buildings was not like the others.  Shortly after exiting the tunnel, the garish silhouette of Plage came into sobering focus.   

In an instant I was struck by the audacity of both color and form of the place.  It was as though the set designers of The Shining and Grandbudapest Hotel had a love child, and that love child-turned-architecht was given a large budget and a free hand somewhere in the 1980’s.  

The palette of Plage is “blue on even more blue”, a sort of cheap sky blue accented by an even cheaper saxon blue streaking its wavy balconies.  If I told my seven-year-old son to paint a race car, he would have selected the exact Pantones of Plage.  Or perhaps if there was a giant safe house for the Genie from Aladdin he would have chilled out here. Neary a straight line in the building, it is a study in curves and contrasts that leaves the eye both bewildered and slightly alarmed.

Things really get interesting for those fortunate enough to enter Plage’s confines.  Upon entering, one is ushered into a lobby space three stories high.  The scene is anchored by a winding staircase modeled after Tony Montoya’s powdery last descent in “Scarface”.  At its foot is a model of Plage itself, as if to remind the guest of the sinister grandeur of the place.  Centered in the lobby is a 25-foot palm tree made entirely of plastic polymer.  

Plage is famed for its cuisine.  Half-way up the Scarface Staircase sits a cadre of vending machines.  Cup O’ Noodle original formula is available for 250 Yen, and the spicy Korean version will set you back 270 Yen (oh, the heat!).  These sumptuous main dishes can be slaked down by Kirin Ichiban for 320 Yen more.  For the brave at heart there is a restaurant on the first floor.  While it’s ownership has rotated over the years its menu has held fast to tradition.  Fried croquettes.  Fried pork cutlets.  Fried shrimp.  Potato salad. 

When I first arrived in Plage 16  years ago I could not quite figure out the draw.  My wife’s family prided itself on understated good taste from fashion to home decor to the menschkeit husbands that some of them had the gaul to marry.  Yet here we were, standing in a linoleum floored lobby in the shade of a plastic palm tree.

We made our way up to the sixth floor and down a hallway laden with a carpet color that can best be described as “pea soup” to the family’s flat.  Upon entering I felt that we had stepped into a large elevator decked out with a single electric burner, wash basin, early flat screen tv pilfered from a Sharp R&D lab and a toaster manufactured in 1982.  The main living area measured roughly 350 square feet, and it was flanked by a modest tatami room that added on another 200 square feet.  A single window faced on to the Yuzawa River and beyond it the towering Daigenta Canyon to the west. My first flat after university in Washington D.C. was similar in size, and I recall the need to step outside just to change my mind, given the stifling dimensions of the space.  Now I was eat, sleep and kibitz with my new machatunim in close quarters.  How would this end up?  

Fortunately, over the years, it has ended up very well for two very different reasons.  

First, despite it’s mind-blowing design flaws, Plage is blessed with an outstanding hot spring.  The soaking pools are expansive, assiduously clean and imbued with mountain minerals to restore vitality to both body and spirit.  After piloting my family in our small car through the slog of Tokyo traffic (being subjected to a beguiling mix of Raffi and BTS for three hours), plunging myself into torpid waters and taking in the mountain views is absolutely wonderful.  When I am joined by my father-in-law and my young sons in the hot springs, the high c’s lead to conversations about our place in the universe as well as a panoply of classic fart jokes (in two languages, no less!). 

The curative effects of Plage’s onsen have knock-on effects.  My wife arrives in the small flat from her soak with a smile on her face, a warm sparkle in her eyes and a glow in her soft cheeks.  My daughter returns from the waters ready to hold court for the punch-up proceedings of our family dinners.  She cuts the jib of Wonder Woman and the acerbic wit of Mrs. Maisel.  My mother-in-law, a pillar of strength and purpose, softens to take in the joys of her progeny.

If the hot spring is the catalyst, it is the connection with family that makes our sojourns to Plage so special.  Warmed by the thermal baths (and the outstanding locally brewed Hakkaisan sake) we connect with other over feasts of sashimi fresh from the Sea of Japan, whimsically simple pickles, cheap Meiji chocolates and a dizzying array of savory snacks.  These family dinner parties over the years have been laden, in the patter of my Tribe, with happiness and tears.  

In the midst of the Blitz, Winston Churchill hosted his inner circle at the storied Buckinghamshire estate of Chequers.  Ricky and Ralph Lauren get away from it all at their 16,000 acre Double RL Ranch.   Beyoncé  and her dear Jay-Z find comfort in their modest 15,000 square foot mansion in the Big Easy.

We have our beloved Plage . . .

. . . a place that I would not trade for anything.