In August 1907, Prince Arisugawa Takehito was touring the Tohoku region of northern Japan when he arrived at the shores of Lake Inawashiro, the country's fourth-largest freshwater lake. The scenic beauty of the highland landscape -- the broad water, the volcanic peak of Mount Bandai rising behind it -- moved him enough to commission a summer villa on the spot. Unusually for a royal residence, the prince designed the building himself, working alongside local architects and carpenters rather than importing a European designer. Construction was completed in just one year, by August 1908. The result was a three-story wooden structure crowned by an octagonal tower, rising 17.9 meters above the lakeshore. White clapboard walls and a wraparound balcony gave it a distinctly Western silhouette, but the construction techniques and certain architectural details were unmistakably Japanese.

Step inside Tenkyokaku and the Meiji era's fascination with Western culture becomes tangible. Marble mantelpieces frame the fireplaces. Chandeliers hang from coffered ceilings. A billiard room occupies one wing -- the game was wildly fashionable among Japan's elite during this period. The floor space spans 927 square meters across three levels, an intimate scale compared to European palaces but generous for a summer retreat. Every detail reflects the era's appetite for blending East and West: Japanese joinery holding together a French-inspired facade, local timber shaped into forms borrowed from continental architecture. The villa was a place where the imperial family could relax in Western comfort while gazing out at one of the most classically Japanese landscapes in the country.

The villa passed through several royal hands over the following decades. In 1922, ownership transferred to Prince Takamatsu Nobuhito, who added a Japanese-style annex for Prince Arisugawa's widow. She lived there until her death in 1923. The young Emperor Showa -- then still crown prince -- visited and chose the villa as the setting for his honeymoon in 1924, lending it a romantic legacy that locals remember to this day. After World War II, the sweeping reforms that dismantled the old aristocratic system brought Tenkyokaku into public ownership. Prince Takamatsu surrendered the villa to Fukushima Prefecture. It served as a conference hall and seminar space for decades, a utilitarian second act for a building designed for imperial leisure.

Recognition of the villa's historical and architectural significance came in February 1979, when Tenkyokaku was designated one of Japan's Important Cultural Properties. After extensive renovations, the building opened to the public in September 1982. Today visitors can walk through the rooms where princes played billiards and emperors honeymooned, and view exhibits on Meiji-era history displayed in the very rooms that embody it. In 1984, a large bronze statue of Prince Arisugawa was relocated from its former position in front of the Naval Staff College in Tsukiji, Tokyo, to the villa grounds -- bringing the building's creator back, in a sense, to the lakeside he fell in love with. From the upper windows, Lake Inawashiro still spreads out below, and on a clear day Mount Bandai still rises behind it, the same view that stopped a prince in his tracks in 1907.