There’s no shortage of new hotels in Japan, which is in the midst of a bona fide construction boom. But rather than join the ranks of urban highrises and hotel chains in heavily touristed Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, the independently-owned Nipponia Hotels specializes in restoring older buildings in lesser known regions. The latest, Nipponia Sado, opened last summer in Sado Island’s gold rush town of Aikawa, which received UNESCO World Heritage status in 2024 for its 400-year-old mining history. Four of the guest rooms are in a restored merchant’s house with traditional Japanese touches like sliding shoji screens, washi paper lanterns, and tatami mats. Earthen walls, a ceiling designed to look a ship’s hull, and a uchigura—an inner storehouse that is unique to Niigata Prefecture—make this an authentic island retreat in Japan’s Snow Country. Just up the hill is a standalone dwelling, designed for four guests, and the hotel’s breezy breakfast space where owners Ryuzo Amemiya and his wife Akimi serve up Sado specialities and recommend local activities like tub boat excursions to bioluminescent coves, rice-paddie birdwatching tours of Sado’s reintroduced and endangered toki (crested ibis), and tastings at Sado’s famed sake breweries, like Hokusetsu, founded by chef Matsuhisa “Nobu” Nobuyuki and Robert De Niro.
Correction, March 14
The original version of this story mischaracterized the design of the hotel. The floor was not made from a ship's hull; the ceiling was designed to look like a ship's hull.