The Imperial Hotel Is Finally Opening in Kyoto, Inside a Building From 1936

The Imperial Hotel brand has not opened a new property in three decades, and its fourth one, after Tokyo, Osaka and Kamikochi, is opening this spring in Kyoto’s Gion district. That alone would make it worth a mention. What makes it worth more than that is the building it is going into.

It is being built inside the Yasaka Kaikan, a nationally registered cultural property that has stood in Gion since 1936. The hotel is keeping 16,387 of the original exterior tiles and using traditional restoration methods, including a technique called ikedori, live capture, to preserve the building rather than replace it. The same construction company that built the original nearly 90 years ago, Obayashi Corporation, is the one doing this restoration. There is even a design connection back to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel Tokyo, since some of the same artisans and materials tie the two buildings together across decades.

It will be a small hotel by luxury standards, 55 rooms across seven stories, with a spa, a pool and dining built in. Gion itself is the part I want families to think through before they book based on the hotel alone. It is Kyoto’s geisha district, narrow streets, wooden teahouses, and it comes with real etiquette rules around photographing geiko and maiko as they move between appointments. Staying inside Gion puts you steps from Yasaka Shrine and a short walk from the Kamo River, but it also means you are staying inside a neighborhood that Kyoto has been actively working to protect from overtourism, so how you move through it matters more here than in most parts of the city.

I like seeing this kind of project open in Kyoto specifically, because Kyoto’s whole identity is built around holding onto what is old rather than tearing it down for something new, and a hotel that restores a 1936 building instead of demolishing it fits that spirit better than most new luxury openings do.

A brand new luxury property in a historic district is not automatically the right call for every family. It is a strong pick for a couple wanting to base themselves in the most atmospheric part of Kyoto, and I would pair it with an early morning at the temples nearby before the crowds arrive, since that is when Gion and its surroundings feel like themselves.

For a full look at where to stay and what to build a Kyoto trip around, that is what my Kyoto city guide covers.