In 1904, Minikishi Takahashi started to dig.

He was a 46-year-old strawberry farmer, with no background in art or engineering.

He had an elementary school education, but he also had a vision.

So armed with a pickaxe, he started chipping away at the side of a cliff.

He was out there for days, which turned into weeks, which turned into decades.

His neighbors would walk by and see him working, and say,

Gankutsu Hoteiru, in Japanese that he's digging a cave.

Slowly, the cave became more and more elaborate.

Minikishi Takahashi dug a grand hall, a staircase, balconies.

He painstakingly carved crown moldings, vaulted ceilings, and even flower vases from the rock.

He carved three stories into the cliff face, rooms with doors and windows.

Minikishi Takahashi is nobody, he's just a guy, but he wants to do something big.

He wants to do something that shows the world like I'm here, I'm doing things.

It's this year.

Normal guy, doing something amazing.

So it's the oldest corner of Takahashi.

I'm Sarah Wyman, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today, we're going to a town about an hour northeast of Tokyo, to see the Gankutsu Hoteiru.

It's a name based on that Japanese phrase, for he is digging a cave.

But to be clear, the caves are not actually a hotel.

They're a magnificent work of art carved into the side of a cliff.

We'll hear the story of the man who was digging a cave,

...