Kubo Farm, just a short distance from the hutte, is said to be open nearly year-round, serving as a kind of supermarket for locals. Step inside and you’re immediately greeted by an abundance of large, hearty vegetables. With pasta, canned tomatoes, and kelp for seasoning also on the shelves, menus naturally begin forming in your mind as you shop.

We were told that the grape bread is not only great for breakfast, but also pairs well with meat and makes a fine snack — so we grabbed a loaf.

Vegetables for dinner, something easy to grab in the morning, things we don’t strictly need but would be glad to have… As the basket grows heavier, the hours ahead begin to take on shape.

The first thing that surprised us upon arriving at “My Hutte” was how cool it was inside. Much cooler than expected. There is no air conditioning or heating — even in summer, the natural coolness is all you need. I found myself unpacking slowly, hazily wondering whether such a utopia still exists in Japan.

The interior lighting is kept a little dim. Perhaps because of this, our gaze drifts naturally toward the light outside. The view through the windows is still bright and pale, and only the quiet rustling of the trees makes its way in. Rather than filling the space with artificial brightness, the design seems to welcome the presence of nature itself.

After deciding on rooms with our friends and settling in, we took a slow walk around the hutte while it was still light. There’s a tatami room. Looking closely, it feels like a renovation that preserved just enough memory of the old Japanese-style space. As if time itself was carefully stitched together to arrive at this form. A small red piano and various pieces of furniture quietly invite a sense of play.

Wandering through the interior, several works of art caught my eye. The room with the fireplace in particular felt like a place where you could sit on the sofa and simply stand before the painting forever. First to draw my attention was an image of the Meiji-era “Karuizawa Green Hotel.” The dark brown exterior and striking white design of My Hutte are quietly quoted from that past memory.

At the same time, the mid-century elements originally built into the structure in the 1960s build a bridge toward something that feels futuristic. A painting of two rockets hangs on the turquoise-blue wall. The ambivalent vectors of past and future seem to have stopped dead in this very moment — a kind of “vacuum-like floating sensation.”

This hutte holds both the intimacy of a mountain hut and a feeling of floating beyond time, simultaneously. Neither purely nostalgic nor strictly refined. Freely transcending nations and eras, bound neither to yesterday nor to tomorrow — that comfort is conveyed not in words but in the shape of the space itself. The time you spend here drifts between past and future, with only the present moment suspended.

We headed to “Ruom no Mori,” just five minutes by car, for a light bite. Sitting amid the open forest, we shared pizza baked in a wood-fired oven. The crust was perfectly charred, right down to the edges. We later learned that the fireplace in the hutte came from this very place.

We decided to drive around the area a little more. We stopped in at “72season's,” near the cabbage fields, to choose wine for the evening. Hearing it was a Portuguese wine specialist, we debated whether to open this one for dinner or save that one for beside the fire — and enjoyed the conversation itself. Knowing how many bottles you can actually finish is a sign of maturity.

We also stopped by Asama Meat to pick up some Akagi beef. By the time we’d made our rounds, the night ahead had finally started to feel real.

Back at the hutte, there was still plenty of time. Without any particular arrangement, someone started chopping vegetables in the kitchen, another began lighting charcoal, and someone else headed to the bathroom to heat up the sauna. Everyone drifted freely toward their own version of the evening. Even without doing the same thing, a shared sense of floating within the same time was genuinely felt.

I wandered outside and made my way around to the north side of the building. There, chairs were placed facing the woods, with a view that opened in the opposite direction from the “front.” A home’s charm tends to be talked about in terms of its south-facing windows and bright garden. But at this hutte, it’s the north side that lingers. The wind threading through the trees is cool, and for some reason you can just keep watching. The north had been repositioned not as a back side, but as a place for quiet.

The friend who had taken a sauna emerged onto the north side a little while later. You could tell they meant to do some outdoor air bathing here. Wrapped in a warm haze of steam, they settled back into a chair. The rustle of leaves layered with birdsong. It felt less like watching a view, and more like floating within a presence.

Before the sun had fully set, friends began gathering around the irori table under the eaves. Watching the charcoal, we grilled vegetables and meat at our own pace. The sizzle of browning food, plates passing back and forth, drinks poured into glasses. There was something fresh about being under the eaves — half outdoors, half inside. What should go on next? Time to flip it? Just salt? The lively conversation never let up, and the live feeling of slicing hot food with a knife was just right.

The quiet night of Kita-Karuizawa watched over our gathering with a gentle calm.

Even after dinner, the night continued gently. We cleared the table and moved to the fire pit in front of the hutte — a place made for gathering around fire. We found some fire starters and a lighter and clumsily arranged the firewood. We thought we’d wrap some potatoes in foil and try roasting them. The fire didn’t catch as easily as hoped, and as we crouched over it trying this and that, one by one, people drifted over. Someone adjusted the logs. “That’s probably good enough,” they said. A little bit of fumbling like this, rather than finishing it neatly alone, is what actually brings people together.

Once the flames finally rose, everyone naturally stayed nearby. We opened a bottle of wine and slowly savored a post-dinner glass. After talking about how good the food was, the conversation wandered — work, a film someone had seen lately, an old trip — drifting wherever it wanted. Watching the fire, you feel like the conversation can go anywhere, and it’s fine if it stops too.

Someone picked out a record and put on some music. The soft crackle of the needle mixed into the snapping of the fire. Sound recorded in the 1960s melted into the night forest of 2026. Before the dreamy night burned itself out, this single-occupancy lodge had quietly become each person’s own “My Hutte.”

When was the last time I woke to the morning sun? A quiet, pale brightness fills the room. There are almost no curtains on the windows, and the outside light arrives exactly as it is. Carrying with it the stillness before the day begins, I step out under the eaves. I take a sip of coffee at the morning table. The morning air has a sharp clarity to it, carrying away the lingering traces of last night’s fire and wine to somewhere a full night away.

I had brought a book I’d left half-read. It felt less like reading ahead, and more like placing the morning hours between the lines of text. Someone wakes up and says, “You slept well, didn’t you.” A morning with no reason to check the clock is this light.

The word “hutte” means “mountain hut” in German — originally a place for hikers to rest and recover. A place where you are allowed, for a time, to step away from the purpose of climbing and simply be there. Freely transcending nations and eras, bound neither to yesterday nor to tomorrow — kindle a fire, gather around a meal, sink into music, gaze at the forest, and wake to the morning light. I want to float here again, bound to nothing, simply in the now.