Yamazato no Iori Soen

An 1836 Hida farmhouse rebuilt in a quiet mountain hamlet, with charcoal-hearth dinners, wood-fired rice and free-flowing water from three springs — including free private baths open all night — but no room has its own bath, there are lots of stairs, and the hearth runs hot in summer

Sōen sits in Fukuchi Onsen, a hamlet of about ten inns some 1,000 m up in the Okuhida valley, and is built around the Futamura family farmhouse — raised in 1836 in Kiyomi, in the Hida hills, dismantled and rebuilt here in spring 2004, and now a registered tangible cultural property. You duck through a low wicket door into a lobby where the irori fires are actually lit; the 15 rooms are split between the old house, a Meiji-era farmhouse brought from Niigata and a newer wing built from the family's own timber. The real draw is the water: three free-flowing springs feed a semi-open-air main bath on the inn's own well, two riverside open-air tubs (one of rock, one an old iron cauldron from a nearby mine) and three private baths across the lane that are free, need no booking and stay open through the night, with 44°C and 35°C tubs side by side. Both meals are eaten around charcoal hearths — river fish and gohei-mochi already roasting as you sit down, Hida beef, rice cooked over wood in a kamado. Japanese guests rate it 4.4 across 970 reviews on one major site and 4.69 across 387 on another, and bloggers who stayed from 2022 to 2026 praise the quiet, the baths and the honour-system drinks chilled in spring water. The catches: no room has its own bath, there are many stairs and outdoor paths, the riverside baths close in heavy rain, the hearth is hot in summer, and in 2026 one guest found service muddled while another was unexpectedly billed for a welcome drink. Two-meal rates run about ¥24,000–31,000 per person.