From Hong Kong to Tokyo: how a globetrotting couple turned ‘industrial’ house into family home
After years of wandering, a Ralph Lauren executive and his interior designer wife finally put down roots in the Japanese capital
“Feels like home.” Those three words, alongside a rising-sun flag and a love heart, accompany a photograph of Shelly Hayashi in a recent Instagram post from Tokyo, Japan: the mother of three is sitting in the sun, smiling at her family enjoying R&R indoors, while bulldog Boss is zonked out on the floor.
The idyllic image announces new beginnings. After stints in New York, London and Hong Kong, American Hayashi and Japanese husband Hiro, a creative executive at Ralph Lauren, have settled down.
“He hasn’t lived in Japan since he was 18 – so this move to Tokyo is a big homecoming for him, and us as a family,” Hayashi says. “It’s been so long since we haven’t had the feeling of having to move.”
The business expansion goes hand in hand with a home in which the family can spread out: in January, following a four-month renovation of the four-level, six-bedroom, concrete-and-steel house the couple bought last year, the Hayashis moved in, accompanied by all their cherished possessions.
In their new digs, about twice the size of their 1,600 sq ft rented beach pad in Hong Kong, are keepsakes, such as a pair of century-old stuffed emperor penguins, from the first Japanese foray into the Antarctic; a drafting table built in 1890; black-and-white photographs; and a wooden high chair bought for a song at an antiques market in Britain. “I’ve used it for all my children,” says Hayashi.