Japan Just Turned a 118-Year-Old Prison Into a 48-Suite Luxury Hotel — and It Opens This Month
HOSHINOYA Nara Prison transforms a Meiji-era former prison, a nationally designated cultural property, into one of the most unusual luxury hotels in the world.
Hoshino Resorts will open HOSHINOYA Nara Prison on June 25 in Nara Prefecture, Japan, converting a former prison built in 1908 into a 48-suite luxury hotel. It is the first time a prison in Japan has been reimagined as a hospitality property, and the building itself holds national designation as an Important Cultural Property.
The former Nara Prison is the last surviving structure among the so-called Five Great Prisons of the Meiji era, a period of rapid modernization spanning 1868 to 1912. Its Romanesque red-brick architecture, designed by justice ministry architect Keijiro Yamashita, has been meticulously preserved. Each suite combines between nine and eleven former solitary confinement cells to create expansive layouts with separate bedrooms, living areas, and dining spaces — surrounded by the original restored brick walls and wood paneling.
Beyond the rooms, the property includes a reception hall, a tea salon serving Japanese black tea and traditional sweets, a restaurant, and a dining lounge. Adjacent to the hotel, the Former Nara Prison Museum opened in April and offers guided tours exclusively to hotel guests before opening to the public.
The concept reflects a growing global trend of heritage conversion projects in hospitality, but few have taken on a building with this kind of history. The prison operated for more than a century before closing in 2017, the same year it received its cultural property designation. Hoshino Resorts, one of Japan's most respected hotel operators, has positioned the property as a place where guests can engage with the building's past rather than ignore it.
HOSHINOYA Nara Prison sits in the hills northeast of central Nara, a city famous for its ancient temples and free-roaming deer. For travelers exploring Japan beyond Tokyo and Kyoto, it adds a compelling — and unusual — reason to spend a night in a city that most visitors pass through in a single day.