TSURUI, JAPAN — The first thing that strikes a visitor is the scent of burnt wood that permeates this 18th-century cottage called Chiiori with its thick thatched roof.

Then there is the sense of nature: the sounds of wildlife and the wind in the tall cedars that surround the house, which stands in the Iya Valley on Shikoku Island, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands.

Alex Kerr, an American who has renovated more than 30 houses around the country, found this minka, or farmhouse, while hiking in the area the early 1970s. He paid ¥380,000 at that time for the property, which was built around 1720 and had been empty for 17 years.

“It took me six months to negotiate with the owners as I didn’t understand a word of the local dialect,” said Mr. Kerr, who named the house Chiiori, or House of the Flute, after a college pastime. “The government now values it at ¥6,000 for tax purposes,” he said, which today is the equivalent of about $70.