



By any measure, Reiko Suzuki was leading a great life. She’d lived in the United States, had a solid job with a major Japanese company, a husband and two children, and she enjoyed downhill skiing with her family every winter. But then she became obsessed with a mountain.

Mount Yotei is a stunning volcano that is almost the mirror image of Mount Fuji. Like Roy Neary obsessing over Devils Tower in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Ms. Suzuki formed an idée fixe around being near Yotei, which is in Hokkaido. She had wanted to live on Japan’s northernmost island since falling in love with horses as a girl: Her father had told her that only people who lived in Hokkaido could have horses.

Three years ago, she drove past a plot of land for sale in the ski resort of Niseko with a view of Yotei. She decided to buy it on the spot. She and her children have just moved into a sleek new home on the site, bought for 30 million yen, or $273,000; her husband divides his time between Yokohama, a city south of Tokyo, and Niseko.

“I felt a thunderbolt when I saw Yotei,” Ms. Suzuki, 45, said. “It was calling to me. There was a spiritual connection that gave me goose bumps.”