From ¥9,000 a night, yet almost entirely new!
When we say ‘from ¥9,000 a night’, people often ask whether we have simply freshened up an old inn. Not at all. The building did exist, but it was a day-use hot-spring facility that closed about 20 years ago. It had no guest rooms and had stood empty for those 20 years. You can imagine the state it was in. We stripped the interior back to the steel frame and renewed everything: partitions, finishes, plumbing, air conditioning and insulation. It is almost a new building.
It is exactly the approach I used at Satoyama Jujo, Matsumoto Jujo and Hakone Honbako. It has cost more than building from scratch. The materials are a step below those at Satoyama Jujo, but the floors are still solid wood, the walls mostly diatomaceous earth and the ceilings Japanese linden plywood. The hot-spring facilities have, of course, all been renewed. The wood-fired sauna area is completely new: a log building made from substantial Nagano-grown cedar.
To be honest, I think it may be more comfortable than Satoyama Jujo. The beds are Simmons, with duvets filled with Nordic down. The furniture is by SHIKI in Fukuoka, a Japanese maker known for comfortable seating and good craftsmanship. Extra beds allow up to four people to stay. Self-service drinks are also available in the shared areas.
The sheet flooring in the shared corridors is sometimes described as looking inexpensive. It was a decision we debated until the end. We considered clear resin over the concrete slab, or carpet, but this is a hot-spring property: sheet flooring seemed a reasonable choice for walking around barefoot. As at Satoyama Jujo, we therefore do not provide slippers. A robot vacuum regularly cleans the corridors.
Some guests ask for slippers, but I dislike the shared slippers at public facilities and accommodation when you have no idea who wore them before you. When they are stacked together, it is even worse. Am I the only one who thinks the soles should never touch the surfaces your feet go on? That was why we did away with slippers at Satoyama Jujo too, though I remember many guests initially asking for them. We hear similar comments at 10 Stories Stay. Does sheet flooring really need slippers? Whether to provide them or change to carpet is something I am still considering.
To be continued.
