On a snowy day in February, the LUXE team took a trip to the recently refurbished Mampei Hotel in Karuizawa. Celebrating the establishment and reminiscing with the manager about one of its most famous guests: singer, songwriter and poet, John Lennon.
From the article by LUXE writer, Masako Teddy:
With the restoration complete, the finished Mampei has truly returned to aesthetic glory. The main building, the Alps Wing, was designed by Kume Gonkurō, who’d created the Nikko Kanaya Hotel, and the wing has been designated a national tangible cultural property.
Here, you can feel the historical atmosphere of the hotel’s semi-Western stylings, so specific to Japan, and unlike the more direct foreign designs so often seen around Karuizawa.
Since the distant Meiji Era, these halls have welcomed innumerable guests from overseas. You can sense the importance placed on elegance during that time period.
The main dining room features stained glass crafted by Unozawa Hideo. The stained glass has numerous motifs, from golf to tennis to the alternating attendance of samurai lords during the Edo era.
One of the beautiful sights here is the traditional coffered ceiling, the likes of which were used in feudal residences, the main halls of temples, and the rooms of shoguns and samurai lords.
Click here to read the full article at the online edition of LUXE.