Overview

Yamaguchi House gives you a private hot spring stay in Ōhiradai Onsen, directly opposite Ōhiradai Station on the Hakone Tozan Railway. Rather than a staffed ryokan with shared rooms and baths, you reserve your own historic house and enjoy the space without sharing it with another booking.

The property began as the family home of Kenkichi Yamaguchi, who belonged to the family behind Hakone’s Fujiya Hotel. The Main House dates from 1930 and combines a Western-style residence with Japanese rooms added shortly after the Second World War. The building became a Nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2015.

You can choose the Japanese Rooms, the complete Main House, or the separate Annex. Each option gives you a private garden and your own natural hot spring bath. This setup suits you when you want the character of an older Hakone home, complete privacy, and simple rail access for exploring the wider area.

Accommodation

When you reserve the Japanese Rooms, you stay in two connected tatami rooms designed in sukiya and shoin styles. One room was originally created as a tea room and now serves as the bedroom, with two semi-double beds, a tokonoma alcove, a chrysanthemum stone, and bonsai decoration. The second room has a sunken horigotatsu table and works as your living and dining space. You also have a compact kitchen, a private toilet, and access to both the indoor and outdoor hot spring baths.

The complete Main House adds the original Western-style residence to the Japanese rooms. On the ground floor, you can move between the entrance hall, study, living room, and Japanese wing. A chandelier created for the house by a Hakone Venetian Glass Museum craftsman welcomes you in the entrance hall.

The study preserves books, furniture, and displays connected with the Yamaguchi family. In the living room, you can look across the stone terrace and garden, listen to a collection of music from the 1980s and 1990s, or use the telescope for birdwatching. The original fireplace has also been restored as an architectural feature, although you cannot light it. Upstairs, the Western bedroom has two large single beds, a washbasin, Showa-period furniture, and Scandinavian textiles.

The Annex offers a separate single-storey house dating from the mid-Showa period. You have a Japanese-inspired bedroom with two single beds and Scandinavian fabrics, a tatami room with a horigotatsu table, a study area with an antique writing desk, and a living and dining room with a large sofa and small book collection. Futon bedding with thick mattresses gives you another sleeping option.

Quality bedding, towels, toiletries, heating, air conditioning, and air purifiers support a comfortable stay. The Japanese Rooms and Main House also provide large Japanese-made towels and bathrobes, while the Annex includes laundry facilities for longer visits.

Dining

Meals are not automatically included, so you can plan each day around your own schedule. The Japanese Rooms and Main House have a small but well-equipped kitchen, while the Annex has a larger kitchen with cookware, tableware, a refrigerator, rice cooker, microwave, toaster, kettle, and tabletop cooking equipment. Coffee and tea are also provided.

When you stay in the Japanese Rooms or complete Main House, you can arrange a private chef in advance. The French menu can feature Kanagawa beef, seafood from Sagami Bay, and other local produce, with dishes adjusted around your preferences. A Japanese chef can prepare home-style food based on handmade fermented ingredients and a macrobiotic approach, with meat or fish available when requested.

The historic dining room in the Main House opens for private-chef dinners. You can enjoy your meal using tableware connected with the Yamaguchi family, turning dinner into part of the house experience rather than a standard restaurant visit.

Catering can also be arranged in advance, with options that may include French party dishes, fermented vegetarian Japanese food, or Buddhist vegan shojin cuisine. When you stay in the Annex, you can prepare an outdoor meal with the electric barbecue equipment in the garden.

Onsen and Wellness

Every accommodation option gives you a completely private hot spring experience. You never share your bathing facilities with anyone staying in another part of Yamaguchi House.

The Japanese Rooms and complete Main House include two bathing spaces. You can soak outside in a private rock bath surrounded by the garden or bathe indoors in a tub made from kodai hinoki, an old Japanese cypress prized for its fragrance and suitability for bathing.

The Annex has its own private indoor hot spring bathroom with a kodai hinoki tub. The garden also includes a private hot spring footbath, giving you another way to enjoy the water while spending time outside.

The water comes from Ōhiradai Onsen and is a clear, colourless, mildly alkaline chloride spring. It is traditionally valued for helping you recover from fatigue and leaving your skin feeling smooth.

Wellness treatments can be arranged before your stay. When you reserve the Japanese Rooms or Main House, you can book an aroma body or facial treatment in the private treatment room. The body treatment uses botanical aroma oils and includes a footbath with natural hot spring water. In-room bodywork and traditional onsen-style massage can also be arranged in both the Main House and Annex.

Guests with Tattoos

All hot spring baths at Yamaguchi House are completely private, so you can use them if you have tattoos. The Main House and Japanese Rooms include a private open-air rock bath and indoor cypress bath, while the Annex has its own private cypress bath.

Facilities

Yamaguchi House provides private natural hot spring baths, gardens, free Wi-Fi, heating, air conditioning, air purifiers, televisions, kitchens, refrigerators, cooking equipment, tableware, hairdryers, towels, toiletries, and toilets with bidet functions. The Main House also includes a study, stone terrace, birdwatching telescope, music system, historic book collection, and exhibition about the Yamaguchi family. The Annex includes a living and dining room, work desk, small library, washer-dryer, garden barbecue area, herb and vegetable beds, and a hot spring footbath.

All indoor spaces are non-smoking. You need to remove your shoes before entering and keep noise low, particularly after 10:00 p.m., because the houses stand in a residential neighbourhood. Pets cannot stay at the property, although assistance involving a guide dog can be discussed in advance.

Activities

You can reserve a private sushi-making experience with a professional chef. The session introduces you to preparing sushi rice, choosing soy sauce, using fresh wasabi, cutting fish, and shaping nigiri. Depending on the programme, you may also prepare rolls before sitting down to enjoy what you have made with seasonal fruit afterward.

The Main House and garden can also provide the setting for a private photo wedding. The registered cultural property, period interiors, Japanese rooms, and garden give you several backgrounds without leaving the grounds.

You can spend quieter hours walking through the garden, watching birds from the living room, soaking in the open-air bath, listening to music, reading, or preparing food together. In spring, you may see wild kogomi ferns growing in the Annex garden alongside herbs, vegetables, plum trees, and seasonal plants.

Ōhiradai Station stands directly in front of the property. The Hakone Tozan Railway connects you with Hakone-Yumoto in around 16 minutes and continues towards Miyanoshita and Gora, making it easy to reach museums, mountain scenery, and other parts of Hakone without relying entirely on a car.

Additional Features

Yamaguchi House combines historic architecture with the independence of a private holiday home. You can choose a compact stay in the Japanese Rooms, reserve the complete 1930 Main House, or select the separate Annex for its single-storey layout, larger kitchen, barbecue space, laundry facilities, and garden footbath.

This property works especially well when you value privacy and prefer to shape your own routine. You can cook, arrange a private meal, book a treatment, bathe whenever you like, and return from sightseeing to a house reserved entirely for you.