Bed & Craft: Mitu
In the famed woodworking town of Inami, lies the 6 beautiful properties of Bed & Craft. Former artist residences, a famed local restaurant in it’s heyday, and what was once the local clinic, Bed & Craft have stunningly restored and renovated these local buildings to provide a gorgeous boutique stay and help reinvigorate this sweet town.
Each property has been painstakingly decorated and designed by a local artist, from a Buddhist Statue artist (TenNe), two woodcarvers (KIN-NAKA & TATEGU-YU), a landscape gardener (RoKu), a lacquer artist (TAE) and a talented potter (MITU); making a stay in any of these lovely villas utterly unique and different for each stay.
MITU
Formerly the VIP entrance hall for the prestigious KIN-NAKA restaurant back in the day, the area has now been converted into MITU - the smallest property belonging to Bed & Craft but the one I wanted the most to stay in due to the artist responsible for it’s interior design, the sweet Japanese garden and of course the utterly beautiful open-air goemon buro (pottery bath)
The name MITU comes from the two words:
MI - which means the “passing of time” and TU - “spending time in an intimate peaceful fashion”
The interior decor of MITU was designed by Wato Maekawa, a potter who graduated from Aichi University of the Arts in 2002 where she later began working in a studio in Tokyo. Forward to 2010, Maekawa-san moved her studio to Nanto City in 2010. Her speciality is the creation of slurry castings using plaster molds. Throughout the property you can find her works adorning both the living room and the upstairs bedroom.
Sleek and modern yet celebrating the original infrastructure, one can enjoy tea in the engawa (a Japanese narrow corridor like terrace which often is wrapped around the periphery of the house/room) overlooking the tranquil Japanese garden and pond. Perhaps relax upstairs in the bedroom’s engawa with it’s traditional half frosted glass giving the impression that one is amidst the clouds.
A full kitchen is available if you wish to do some home cooking and just relax away, passing the time, along with a complimentary mini bar with tastes of the local area.
THE OPEN AIR OFURO BATH
My absolute favourite feature and the reason I asked for MITU, was to experience this gorgeous (rather large) goemonburo (pottery bath) with it’s stunning turquoise upper half and I utterly loved the colourful tiles inlaid onto the floor.
Though it is only an ofuro (a Japanese bath), Bed & Craft kindly prepare bath salts for you to enjoy and the ofuro is a reheating one (the best kind! I can never go back to a bath that gets luke warm in 10mins!)
A relaxing view of the garden greets you when one opens the bifold doors, and if you decide to keep them closed, the textured frosted glass of the door’s windows offer privacy.
A SECRET BOOK SHELF DOOR
To my wondrous delight and the inner child in me, it was discovered that the bookshelf in the genkan (the villa’s entrance) was actually a secret door leading to a common area, a downstairs pool (snooker) area and connecting doors to KIN-NAKA & TenNE
*remember MITU was once the VIP entrance hall for the KIN-NAKA restaurant
A perfect solution for large groups of friends or multiple families who want to stay close to each other but still have their own privacy
This particular stay also had friends I brought along where they each stayed in KIN-NAKA and TenNe respectively hence why the hidden doors were unlocked (they are normally locked).
Bed & Craft will happily prepare you a delicious breakfast (sorry forgot to take a photo) from a local business if you require during your stay and are happy to arrange dinner if you prefer not to cook, however on this particular stay, a special booking was made for the divine L’evo (blog post coming soon)
WEB: MITU INSTAGRAM: @BEDANDCRAFT
