In his 1899 report, Robert Boyce explained that  a ‘delightfully cool summer retreat is to be had at Chuzenji, above Nikko, from 6 to 8 hours’ rail and road journey from Tokio’. This was a two-storey Japanese timber house in an idyllic seting west of Nikko, at the edge of Lake Chuzenji, looking across at Mount Nantai. The house was first leased by ambassadors from its private landlord in the mid-1890s. The ground landlord, the Imperial household, leased the site of about half a hectare on five year renewable terms. Sir Ernest Satow, who became minister in 1895, commissioned a resident British architect, Josiah Conder to rebuild the house. Conder had come to Japan in 1876 at the age of 24 on appointment as the professor of architecture at the Imperial College of Engineering and later ran a successful architectural practice in Tokyo: he was one of the foremost influences in introducing western architecture into Japan.

In 1934, the ambassador, Sir Francis Lindley, had apparently been informed that the Office of Works would purchase the house for a maximum of ¥15,000, provided a ground lease for 30 years or more could be obtained from the ground landlord. It transpired that the Imperial household was unable to vary its practice of successive five-year leases but an unwritten understanding was reached that there would be no difficulty in leasing the land for a continuous period of 30 years, subject to renewals every five. Lindley went on ‘I have to report that the house, which would otherwise have been lost to this Embassy, has been bought by a public spirited and patriotic friend of ours, a local British resident, for the sum of ¥10,000, on the understanding that His Majesty’s Government may repurchase it from him at the same figure, or, alternatively, that he will continue to lease it to us so long as it is required and he is in possession.’ The Treasury agreed to this congenial arrangement and the purchase of the building was completed in August 1934. (The vendor in the sale documentation was a not very British-sounding Mr Toshijiro Ho. So felicitous was the whole episode that Lindley’s choreography of it from the outset, and even its underwriting,  may be conjectured?)

The Imperial household transferred the ground to the Utsonomiya State Forestry office in about 1964. The house was extensively rebuilt in 1967.

Chuzenji remained the ambassador’s summer retreat (with some access in later years by members of staff) until the lease was given up in April 2010, after 120 years.