HOSHINOYA Nara Prison Opens: Japan’s First Heritage Hotel in a Meiji-Era Jail

Guest rooms, all suites48suitesFormer solitary cells joined together / one or two guests to a room

Operator

Hoshino Resorts

Opened

2026-06-25

Address

18 Hannyaji-cho, Nara City, Nara Prefecture

Building

The former Nara Prison, an Important Cultural Property and one of the five great Meiji prisons

Check-in / out

15:00 / 12:00

Checked on

2026-09-14

Hoshino Resorts opened HOSHINOYA Nara Prison on 25 June 2026, in the former Nara Prison at 18 Hannyaji-cho in Nara City, a building designated an Important Cultural Property. All 48 rooms are suites, sleeping one or two. A museum on the same site, open to day visitors, had already opened ahead of the hotel.

48 suites made from joined-up solitary cells, and a day ticket to the museum at JPY 2,500

The former Nara Prison is one of five built in the Meiji era, and the only one of them still standing as it was completed. Five cell blocks radiate from a central guard post in what is called the Haviland system, and the red brick walls and the twin towers of the main gate remain untouched. The suites were made by joining solitary cells into single rooms, so the height of a window and the thickness of a wall are those of the original structure. Check-in is 15:00 and check-out 12:00, and guests reach the museum side through a passage of their own.

What the hotel puts on runs with the building rather than against it: Hibiki no Soirée, an evening of gramophone sound, a session blending incense, and exercise first thing in the morning. The dining room serves a course that follows how Western cooking took root in Japan. None of that is sold separately to day visitors.

To see the building without staying, the museum is the way in. Nara Prison Museum by Hoshino Resorts opened on 27 April 2026 and runs 9:00 to 17:00, last entry 16:00, with no regular closing day. Admission is JPY 2,500 for an adult, JPY 2,000 for Nara residents and JPY 3,500 for visitors living outside Japan; JPY 1,500 for high school students, JPY 700 for primary and junior high, free for pre-school children, and JPY 700 each for a disability certificate holder and one carer. Entry is by timed booking, and advance reservations take priority over anything sold on the day.

Room rates are not published as a flat figure; they appear only when a set of dates is searched on the hotel’s own English site. The house rules are long. No food or drink may be brought in beyond a capped drink taken outdoors. Flash, tripods, drones and costume photography are all out. Pets other than assistance dogs cannot come, which rules out arriving by car and leaving a dog in it.

When does the next airfare sale come? Six weeks of records and what is bookable now →

Source: HOSHINOYA Nara Prison official site / Nara Prison Museum by Hoshino Resorts official site / Hoshino Resorts press release / Photo: 663highland, CC BY 2.5 (Wikimedia Commons) / Checked on 2026-09-14