Sanyoso

A Mitsubishi family villa with a garden by Ogawa Jihei and a wing by Togo Murano, where every room has its own onsen bath — superb for architecture and gardens, less so for anyone who minds long corridors or wants a showpiece dinner

Sanyoso was built in 1929 as the villa of Iwasaki Hisaya, eldest son of Mitsubishi's founder, with a garden by the Kyoto gardener Ogawa Jihei. It opened as a ryokan in 1947, and the main building is now a registered tangible cultural property. In 1988 the architect Togo Murano, then over 90, added a new wing. Today it is run by Prince Hotels and has 22 rooms, all with their own bath of Izu-Nagaoka's alkaline spring. The garden is the reason to come: almost every blogger writes about it, and main-building rooms face it, while new-wing rooms look onto their own small courtyards. Japanese guests rate it 4.46 across 45 reviews on one major site. The caveats come up again and again. The grounds are vast, so the walk from some rooms to the baths and dining room is long. Meals are the weakest score: some guests find portions small and the cooking safe rather than memorable, and one early-2025 stay went badly wrong on service. Some new-wing rooms feel dark and low-ceilinged and are waiting for renovation. Prices run from about ¥40,000 per person to around ¥150,000 for two in a main-building annex.