<Begin Segment 33>

TI: Anything else you want to talk about in Japan before we go, come back to the States?

MH: Oh, there's so much there. I was, during this time, I was quite frequently coming back to the States during the summertime because the humidity there was just too much for me. So Lucius would send me home here to Sonoma, and I would come up here. That's when we decided, during that time in Kobe, that we would build here. 'Cause I'd inherited this property. At first we were going to sell it, and then we decided, no, we'd build. So I was looking for the site to build, and my brother showed me this, the site of this house, I mean, which wasn't, of course, here. Which Dad and my brother had both picked out as a place to build a house.

TI: And when your father and brother picked out this site, did they have a person in mind who would build up here?

MH: I don't know, I don't know.

TI: But they just thought of this as a prime site for a place, which is magnificent. I came up here, and you're on the top of the hill looking out into the valley.

MH: All the way down to San Francisco.

TI: The views are just incredible.

MH: Yes. Well, all the other houses, this is all a family property here, and they're all on the, below where we have... this is the height. But I spent one summer here cutting out all the mesquite in order to get to this. And uncovering a big tree, and uncovering other things here before we built here.

TI: Now, was that enjoyable to you to do that kind of physical labor?

MH: Yes, 'cause it meant to much to me to have a home. Just like when I wanted to buy a home in Maryland, it meant so much to me to have a home that was mine. And Sonoma was, had always been this, as far as I was concerned, the only real home I had from the time that my parents bought here.

TI: So for you, this was really going to be your, your place, your home.

MH: Yes. Our furusato, you know, that's what we call it, which is the "home place."

TI: And so in terms of the architecture, it's interesting, there's a Japanese influence.

MH: Indeed. In Japan, there was an American firm called Charles Tuttle and Company, which published an awful lot of Japanese books in, Japanese books about Japan in English. And one of them was A Japanese Touch for Your Home, which I bought in Kobe, and wanted to incorporate certain elements in my home. And so when I came here and stayed with my sister and I was looking for an architect who would style the house, and she gave me the names of a couple of architects here in Sonoma. And I went to the first one, and I walked into his office building, and in his waiting room was A Japanese Touch for Your Home. [Laughs] And so he became our architect. I didn't look any further. And he went right along with me in styling the house, including my wanting to have the ceilings of wood instead of plaster, and the other elements of a Japanese home that I tried to incorporate in this house.

TI: It is gorgeous, because it's sort of, as I come up here, it's so part of the environment here. It's not unsightly in terms of the lines, it's very much in keeping...

MH: No, I even, I picked out the color outside. He wasn't going along with it, the architect, but I picked it out because of the color of the earth. I wanted the house to blend in with the color of the earth. And when it was accomplished, he agreed with me that that was the right color.

TI: Good, I'm glad I asked about that. So you're now, so Lucius retired, and then was the house done then, or did it...

MH: It was done in 1965.

LH: '85.

MH: Oh, '85, excuse me, '85. There I go again, '65 sticks in my mind for some reason. 1985.

TI: So 1985, so this was before Lucius retired, so when Lucius retired, this house was done.

MH: Yes.

TI: And so you've lived here since then?

MH: Ever since then.

TI: The longest period, I'm thinking back in your life history.

MH: Living in one place, yes.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.