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After years of fascination with Anne of Green Gables, the Japanese will soon be able to make Anne's house their own,
with three Anne-style homes designed for the Japanese market.
(Courtesy Jones and Manning Architects)
| Japan's obsession with Anne of Green Gables takes architectural
form in a line of Victorian "farmhouses." by Murray Whyte They're a common sight outside the green-gabled farmhouse in tiny Cavendish, on Prince Edward Island: Japanese tourists, from schoolgirls to elderly men, snapping photos, sketching, or scooping fistfuls of soil from the surrounding flower beds into plastic bags to take back home. To the thousands of Japanese who make the pilgrimage halfway around the world each year to see it, this is more than a quaint, Victorian farmhouse: it's the fictional home of Anne Shirley, the beloved heroine of Lucy Maude Montgomery's 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables. Anne has been adored in Japan since 1954, when the book was translated into Japanese and incorporated into the junior high curriculum. For generations of Japanese, her plucky determination and spunk have proven irresistible. Now, after years of making pilgrimages to this house, they can live in one just like it. Atlantic Canada Home Inc., a consortium of 36 builders in Canada's Atlantic Provinces, has recently begun to offer the Japanese market Anne-style houses, complete with gingerbread trim, hand-carved details, and, of course, green gables. Three models--the Anne of Green Gables House, the Green Gables House, and the House of Red Hair Anne (named for her fiery locks)--will begin appearing in Japan in the next few months. For those who can't afford one of the Anne houses, which start at about $300,000, lot included, Atlantic Canada Home will be only too happy to add an Anne room or two to existing homes. To thousands of Japanese, says Gary Fraser, it's the ultimate souvenir. Fraser Mill Products, his Nova Scotia business, will supply the house with official Anne cabinets, screen doors, and trim. "These houses will be as popular as Mickey Mouse watches," he adds. "For them, she's as big as it gets." Wedged into tiny, 1,500-square-foot lots, the rustic, Victorianesque houses will undoubtedly send a ripple through the uniformity of the modern Japanese cityscape. Still, the Anne houses won't capture the ambience of turn-of-the-century rural Canada. "The idea in the book is that from her room, Anne can peer through the gabled windows onto this lovely pastoral setting and orchards," says Larry Jones, the Prince Edward Island--based architect who designed the Anne homes. "We can't re-create that in Japan, where there's a house two feet from your window. But the inspiration from the original is there." |
Keywords:
Anne of the Green Gables, Japan, Atlantic Canada Home
