Check out this site.
http://www.chiiori.org/
"Deep in the mountains of Tokushima Prefecture, the breathtaking Iya Valley
is renowned as one of Japan's three 'hidden regions'. In the early 1970's,
American writer and art collector Alex Kerr stumbled upon an uninhabited
'kayabuki-yane' thatched-roof farm house in the remote East Iya hamlet of
Tsurui, which he would later name 'Chiiori', and set about restoring."
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