My first flight from Stockholm to Tokyo was over sixteen hours including a layover in Beijing. Having landed in Japan for the first time ever, I was exhausted, hungry, and nervous, but also excited. I had been hired to work in Japan for two months as a fashion model. I had no idea what to expect. But I was definitely not expecting that this short modeling contract would lead to me buying and renovating abandoned homes in Japan a few years down the road. On that day, back in September of 2015, all I knew was that I was about to meet my Japanese modeling agent and get my measurements taken.
Modeling contracts in Japan are different from anywhere in Europe or America. The agency guarantees you a minimum amount of pay while you are there to work. This is very unusual. In return you guarantee that you will keep your hair the same, your skin in condition, do the jobs you’re booked for, follow the rules, be well behaved, and, most importantly, maintain your measurements. They take your measurements when you arrive and every week you’re there to make sure they haven’t changed.
It sounds a little oppressive, but the agency has taken the risk of bringing you to Japan and guaranteeing your $10,000 paycheck for two months’ work. They need to know that if they can’t book you for work that they will be able to keep that money. So, I knew they were going to measure me when I arrived. I was so afraid they’d say my measurements had changed and send me back home that I hadn’t eaten the entire flight.
I now know that they almost never have to send a model home or break their contract. The models are chosen carefully by the agency and brought to Japan because they believe in them and the work they do. In my case, I had been modeling for four years in the US and Europe, including two years as the “Gucci Boy,” the exclusive model for Gucci. When Daisuke Maeda scouted me in Europe in 2015, he knew he could book me practically on name recognition alone; there were clients that would want me to work for them just because I’d worked for Gucci, even without seeing my face.
But on that day back in 2015, when the agency driver, Yuki-san, came to pick me up at the terminal after traveling for over twenty hours, I was nervous. He said we had to take fresh snaps right there in the airport for the booking agents and all I could think was, “I must look a wreck.” We drove to the agency to say hello to Maeda-san and the other agents and have all of my measurements taken. I was so new and spoke so little Japanese I didn’t dare talk to any of the other agents at the time.
After my measurements were taken they walked me over to the model apartments where I’d be staying for my two-month contract. Model apartments need a bit of explanation. These are apartments that the modeling agency provides to the models they employ. The rent is deducted from your pay—very convenient, very easy, and when the contract is over the model can leave for the next city without having to worry about quitting any sort of rental contract. Model apartments are also a great way for the agency to keep track of their models. In Japan, this is especially important with foreign models who might not understand Japan, Japanese manners, or Japanese culture at all. Model apartments give the modeling agency an easy way to keep track of, and keep an eye on, their models.
Most models are very professional, but there’s always one who seems to always be in trouble. I’ve seen it a hundred times. A foreign model misinterpreting a curious gaze from a local as a challenge to a brawl? Seen that. Forgetting basic Japanese etiquette and causing a neighborhood fight? Seen that too. Getting belligerent because the 24-hour convenience store is open but the restroom inside is locked? Yep. That one ended up with the police being called and the agency having to send someone to smooth things over and explain to the model (who had had too many sakes) that the restrooms are locked at 11pm every night, even in the 24-hour stores.
The agency provides apartments, transportation, and managers to chaperone their charges from place to place, keeping the models close at hand and intervening if there’s a problem.
That first day, my manager walked me over to the building where my model apartment was, just a block away from the agency in Roppongi. On the way he filled me in on everything I needed to know, then gave me the keys and showed me the front door to the building. I was very hungry, so before I went up to my apartment, I went into the Family Mart located on the ground floor of the building.
I still remember the smells and impressions walking into a Japanese convenience store for the first time in my life: the sliding doors opening and the Family Mart jingle going on simultaneously “Di di di di di di, di di di di di di.” By the cash register there was oden ( おでん ), a Japanese stew in a dashi broth, that made the whole store smell warm and fishy. Let’s just say I’m not a big fan of oden. I bought myself a two-liter bottle of water and something I thought was chicken, along with some salted cashew nuts, and took the elevator up to apartment 702.
I was pleasantly surprised at the charming, little space. The building was built in the 1980s, fairly new by American standards, old by Japanese standards. The room was very small—the door frame to enter the room was only about 175 cm ( 5’ 9” ) high—I had to crouch when entering. The kitchen corner had a cooking plate and a stainless steel sink. The shower and toilet was a traditional Japanese unit bathroom in yellow-ish plastic.* There was a single bed, a small chair, a plastic desk, a TV, a tiny fridge, some small baskets for trash, and a big closet. The windows were facing the Mercedes Benz showroom, and the Benz logo lit up the Tokyo evening. It was one of the best model apartments I’ve ever stayed in. Tiny, clean, no rats, centrally located, no sharing with some random dude. It was perfect. So much better than model apartments in New York or Milan.
I mentioned New York. Did I also mention rats?
When people hear you’re a model living in New York, they assume you’re living in some swanky penthouse with panoramic views of the city. Nope. Most of the model apartments are bottom-of-the-barrel, shoddy places you’d never imagine stepping foot in, let alone calling home. I stayed in one that was a stone’s throw from the Empire State Building with moldy walls, and—wait for it—rats. Inside. I know, it’s New York. You’d think we’d be used to seeing rats everywhere. But having one in your living space? That’s a whole different ball game.
There were four of us crammed into this tiny apartment—Will, Dylan, Jegor, and myself. Four guys sharing two tiny bedrooms and a “living room” that was more like a closet. Plus the rat, who apparently considered himself our fifth roommate. This thing would come out at night, and he was not shy, either. He’d dig through the trash bags and eat whatever he found. We tried putting our food on high shelves. Fail. We tried putting it in garbage bags. Fail. Finally, we put everything edible in the fridge to keep it safe—even the cereal.
The agency didn’t seem to care—they just told us to buy a trap. Not helpful. We tried everything to get him out. Every night just as we’d be falling asleep: rustle, rustle, rustle. Then we’d all get up and try to chase him out but he’d scuttle down some hidey-hole and it was back to bed. Then, just as we were falling asleep again: rustle, rustle, rustle. One night, in sheer desperation, we got a broom and tried to herd him out the front door. Can you imagine it? Four grown men chasing a rat around a tiny, crappy New York apartment with a broom in the dead of night. (Fail.)
Eventually we gave up and learned to ignore the noise, roll over, and go back to sleep. We lived like that for a month until our contracts were up at the December holidays. Two of us went back home, and two of us were moved to a different apartment for new modeling contracts.
Yes, you heard that right. The four of us moved out and the rat stayed.
When I got to Tokyo, I was ready for the same ordeal, but to my astonishment and great relief, Tokyo was different. My model apartment was clean, cozy, and best of all, vermin-free. I looked around the cute space, tired and hungry but happy and at home in my snug little spot. I sat down by the desk and opened what I thought was chicken and was met with the worst smell you can imagine. To this day I don’t know exactly how to describe it. Imagine rotten cabbage mixed with . . . fish? In high school I worked in a supermarket and sometimes customers would complain about getting meat that had gone bad. The smell of these returned packages of bad meat might be the closest smell I can think of. I suspect that what I had thought was chicken was actually some kind of fermented eel, which is still not my favorite, but on that night back in 2015, there was no way I was going to eat it. I didn’t know what to do with it. I couldn’t just put it in the trash in my room—I would have been smelling that smell for the next two months. Now I know I could have gone down and thrown it in the trash at the Family Mart, but I didn’t know that then. I opened the small window and hid the “chicken” on the sill. Window closed, smell contained. Success! A week later it had magically disappeared. To this day I don’t know what happened to it.
In the end, my first meal in Japan was a few cashew nuts before passing out from exhaustion. Fortunately for me I had a much better experience with food a few days later.
When working as a model, the agency will drive groups of models to and from auditions for bookings, called “castings.” Everyone calls this the “casting car,” and we all spend a lot of time together in it. That particular trip I’d spent a lot of time in the casting car with my new friend Gavin. Gavin is from Florida and had come to Japan ten years prior to study Japanese and attend a Japanese university. He got scouted in the street in Shibuya Crossing ( 渋谷スクランブル交差点 ). Now he’s a comedian, but back then he was a model and after a particularly long day in the casting car he suggested we go to a favorite spot of his, a restaurant called Secchan ( せっちゃん ).
We hopped onto a subway—my first ever in Japan, mind you, a nerve-wracking experience in itself. Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at what felt like a remote, countryside diner, which was in fact, smack in the middle of the city, in Shimokitazawa ( 下北沢 ).
When we walked in I immediately recognized the signature scent of an izakaya ( 居酒屋 ), a pub, through a haze of smoke from the flat iron frying griddles, teppan ( 鉄板 ), on every table. We would order, the chef would prepare the food, and then he’d hand it over for us to cook ourselves, right at our table. I had okonomiyaki ( お好み焼き ) for the first time that night—a savory Japanese pancake made of cabbage and eggs, smothered in a uniquely sweet sauce that I thought tasted something like a mix of Worcestershire sauce and mayonnaise. We fried up smoked cheese and many other things. It was an unforgettable meal. To this day I still take friends to Secchan when they come to visit me in Japan, and I always take some of the sauce back to Sweden so I can cook okonomiyaki for my mom.
That night, amidst the sizzle, the laughter, the clinking glasses and all the stories that Gavin shared with me—each one unfolding another layer of this mesmerizing country—I didn’t just fall for okonomiyaki; I fell deeply in love with Japan.
And then there was Norman.
Norman, my Japanese friend that I got to know in Finland. Yes, Finland. Our first meeting was actually in Sweden, a two-minute introduction to each other at the modeling agency. The next day I headed to Finland for the very first time to go to a music festival with some friends. I missed my first flight, so I had to go straight from the airport to the festival with just my backpack to meet up with everyone. One of my friends and I got in line for the toilet, and he asked to borrow my phone to call his girlfriend. “Sure,” I said, handing it over. And then he vanished. Like smoke. There I was, alone in a sea of 50,000 festival-goers—in a country I’d never been to—with no friends and no phone. I tried asking strangers to dial my number, hoping I’d hear the ringtone and find my friend again, but no luck.
Just as I was about to give up, this Japanese guy tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Weren’t you in Sweden yesterday?” It was Norman. We hung out the rest of the evening, and I finally found my friends at the end of the night.
A year later, I moved to Japan and Norman and I had some crazy adventures. Every outing with him was a surprise. He’d say we were going to the arcade, but then we’d be in the countryside, or jamming in Yoyogi Park. Or we’d join in on the Cinco de Mayo festival put on in Tokyo to celebrate Latin American culture. Except, in Japanese, “cinco” sounds exactly like a slang term for a certain male body part, so things would get a little out of hand. Or we’d take the subway up to Shinjuku ( 新宿区 ), stumble into some karaoke ( カラオケ ) place with cosplay costumes at the entrance, and the night would end with Mario belting out ballads, Yoshi doing a rap, and a cow having a duet with a Japanese schoolgirl.
Japan was like stepping into a world where every day was an unexpected adventure. Walk down any street and it could transform into the most surreal night of your life. Like the times a local would pull me and my friends into some bar we’d never seen before. We’d laugh, drink, and dance, feeling like we were in the best place on earth. But after that night we’d never be able to find that bar again.
Twice more over the next three years I came back to Japan for two-month modeling contracts, and I always stayed in the model apartments in Roppongi. I had already fallen in love with the food and during these additional trips I fell in love with the convenience and the culture. In Japan, you can walk out of your door and everything you could possibly want is available 24/7 just a short walk away. Japan is like New York, but safe.
Then there’s the culture. The Japanese are a study in respect and reverence. Honesty is a way of life. Forget your wallet on a bench? It’s likely to be returned with everything intact. Everyone follows the rules, and queues up when required. It’s orderly in a way that’s hard to understand until you experience it. The intricacies of social norms and etiquette can be baffling. Like the custom of pouring drinks for people of a higher social status than you at the table, and making sure their glass is always full. Even after five years, I’ve learned so much and yet still so much is a mystery, but that is part of what makes it so intriguing.
If you get it wrong and pour the wrong person’s drink, you will definitely get a funny look. Fortunately foreigners are given the “gaijin ( 外人 ) card”—an understanding that you might not get things right because you are a foreigner. As long as you show respect and genuinely try, the Japanese are more than forgiving.
On my third trip, in 2018, I met my girlfriend. In a pizza restaurant in Roppongi.
A friend of mine was about to leave Japan so they had a pizza party and there were about twenty people, a mix of foreigners and Japanese. I wanted to practice the language so I started talking to this pretty girl in my bad Japanese. I thought she was fluent. Turns out she is Korean and her Japanese was bad, too. But neither of us knew that then. The next week I took her to Secchan—the same restaurant that Gavin had taken me to years before—and we’ve been together ever since.
It’s hard to explain how captivated by this country I was after only three trips. I just knew that every time I was about to leave Japan, I wasn’t ready to leave. Each time I had to pack my bags, there was a voice inside saying, “Please, let me stay just a little bit longer.”
I decided it was time to make Japan my permanent home.
Once I decided to live here full-time, I knew I wanted to find my own place, not stay in the model apartments. I wasn’t a kid anymore at 26! I asked my manager, Maeda-san, for suggestions on where to live. He suggested a share house, which has become increasingly popular in Japan. You typically have your own room but share the kitchen and common areas. Intrigued by the idea, I decided to look into it and found a charming share house close to Harajuku ( 原宿 ).
The owner of the share house, Shingo-san, proved to be a wealth of knowledge about real estate in Japan. It was also around this time that I met my mentor, Canadian Senpai ( 先輩 ). I’ll tell you all about him later. The insights I gained from Shingo-san, Canadian Senpai, and others have been invaluable in navigating the real estate landscape in Japan.
As I settled into life in Tokyo, juggling my modeling gigs a few days a week and immersing myself in daily Japanese language learning, my curiosity for the world of Japanese houses grew immensely. With each passing day, I found myself falling more and more in love with the idea of establishing deeper roots in this captivating country. It was time to find a place of my own—no roommates.
When I looked into getting my own place, I was shocked at how much money I would need to rent a small apartment. I have lived all over the world—New York, Australia, London, Milan and more. I have never seen a more complex rental market, with more outrageous fees and costs, than the one in Tokyo. In some cases you have to pay up to half a year’s rent in fees, up front. Money that in most cases you will never get back. Gratitude money, key money, renewal fees . . . oh, and being charged thousands of dollars for putting a small pin-hole in the wallpaper from hanging a photo of loved ones (more on that later).
Turns out it is often easier and cheaper to buy a place in Japan than it is to rent one. And I knew that if I owned my home in Japan, I could also use the talents I’d practiced since I was a kid in Sweden—renovating and reviving.
I took a look at my finances and decided to find a place to buy instead.
I bought the Tree House a few months later.
That’s how this story began.
* Japanese unit bathrooms are similar to prefab shower unit kits in the United States, except instead of just the shower, it includes the entire bathroom; sink, tub, and toilet.
