Hoshino Resorts turns a Meiji-era prison into a 48-suite luxury hotel

Hoshino Resorts opened HOSHINOYA Nara Prison on 25 June 2026 inside the 1908 former Nara Prison, a nationally designated Important Cultural Property — turning 48 former cell blocks into all-suite rooms and betting that tourism revenue, not preservation grants, can keep a protected heritage building standing.

The floortok desk · 3 min read · 8 July 2026

Illustration of a long white-brick colonnade of tall arched windows and a central rotunda — a converted early-1900s prison seen along a quiet diagonal, with a single small brass disc as the one point of warmth. — The 1908 former Nara Prison, a designated cultural property, reborn as a hotel. · Illustration by floortok.com

Hoshino Resorts opened HOSHINOYA Nara Prison on 25 June 2026, according to the company's own newsroom, inside the former Nara Prison — a red-brick building completed in 1908 and designated a National Important Cultural Property in 2017. The prison was designed by architect Keijiro Yamashita on a radial layout known as the Haviland system, with cell wings extending from a central guard station; Hoshino says it was one of five prisons Yamashita designed in the Meiji era, and the only one of the five still fully intact. After its use as an adult prison ended, the building operated as Nara Juvenile Prison from 1946 for more than 70 years before this conversion.