Hakone
Gen Hakone Gora
玄 箱根強羅
Katsushika Hokusai, “Kajikazawa in Kai Province (Kōshū Kajikazawa), from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)” — The Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0
Gen opened in Gora in May 2021 and reached its present 18 rooms after a second phase of building finished in July 2022. Every room has its own open-air hot spring bath and a wide deck: the six top-floor rooms look straight up at the sky, while the twelve on the third and fourth floors sit under eaves. Rooms run from 60 to 115 square metres, averaging 88.
The water is a hypotonic, neutral sodium chloride spring drawn at 56.2C, and the house states that every bath on the property is fed on a flow-through basis. The two communal baths, one for men and one for women, are built against a moss-planted rock wall fitted with an intermittent mist, and each has a sauna and a cold bath. They open from 16:00 to 10:00 and close between 01:00 and 05:00. There is no reservable private bath. The landing outside them has massage chairs, free drinks and cold sweets.
Dinner and breakfast are both carried to the room, with a kitchen on the guest-room floor so that hot dishes arrive hot; dinner is a creative kaiseki built on dashi and ingredients from the surrounding coast and hills, and breakfast includes clay-pot rice and house-made yoghurt. Massage is given in the room.
Check-in is 15:00, check-out 11:00. A free car collects guests from the car park behind Gora station on the Hakone Tozan Railway between 14:30 and 18:00; phone on arrival. Children may stay; pets may not.
Why we chose it
Almost everything here points inward. All 18 rooms have their own free-flowing hot spring bath, both meals are carried to the room, and even the massage is given there. That suits anyone who would rather not appear in a dining room. The trade-offs are stated plainly: no reservable private bath, communal baths shut from 01:00 to 05:00, and the shuttle from Gora runs only between 14:30 and 18:00.
What it has
- Room with private hot spring bath
- Kaiseki dinner
We may earn a commission when you book through links on this page.
Prices are indicative and change with dates and availability.