Fukiya

A 20-room sukiya inn above Yugawara with three free private open-air baths, vintage Scandinavian chairs in every room and old-style in-room dining — but only half the rooms have spring water in their hinoki tubs, and the food under a newer chef divides repeat guests

Fukiya is a small inn of 20 rooms on the hillside above Yugawara's old spa quarter, built in the sukiya style (the best rooms were designed by the architect Kazuyuki Nimura) and furnished with a collection of vintage Scandinavian chairs — Finn Juhl, Larsen, Wanscher — that has earned it the nickname 'the chair geek's inn', as the inn itself puts it. The draw is the bathing: two gender-separated baths with rock open-air tubs plus three private open-air hinoki baths, all free — one on the third floor booked in 40-minute slots, and two on the roof that you simply use when the lamp by the lift is off. Meals are a monthly-changing kaiseki and a breakfast built around rice cooked in a clay pot for each room, both brought to your room by a nakai in kimono. Japanese guests rate it 4.8 across 165 reviews on one major site (rooms 5.0, baths 4.9) and 4.72 across 50 on another, and bloggers who stayed in 2022 and 2023 praised the quiet, the rooftop baths and an almost absurd list of free extras, from after-bath shaved ice to baby nappies. Know before you book: only ten rooms (types S, Y, A, X and B) have spring water in their in-room tubs — two bloggers in cheaper rooms found plain water. In 2026 one guest found a 'special' room dated with tired carpet, several found dinners too large, and a long-time repeat guest felt the food had slipped since the chef changed. Official weekday rates with two meals run ¥31,900–53,900 per person, plus ¥2,200–12,100 on busier dates.