Four Seasons Hotel Kyoto

Shakusui-en is older than almost anything else in the neighbourhood. The pond garden was laid out around 800 years ago on the estate of a Heike-era courtier and it survives, with its maples, stone lanterns and wooden tea house, at the centre of the Four Seasons Hotel Kyoto, which opened around it in 2016 in the temple district of Higashiyama. The hotel came to the garden, not the other way round.

History

The site belonged to Myoho-in, the temple next door, and the garden is named in the Tale of the Heike, the medieval chronicle of the Taira clan's rise and fall. For much of the 20th century the land held a hospital. When it came up for redevelopment the condition was that the garden be kept intact, and Four Seasons built its first hotel in Kyoto on that basis, opening on 15 October 2016 with 123 rooms and a wing of private residences.

Architecture and design

The building is low and L-shaped, wrapped round two sides of the pond so that the garden is visible from the lobby, the restaurants, the bar and most of the rooms. The Tokyo practice Kume Sekkei was the architect, and the interiors by HBA use dark timber, washi paper and stone in a restrained version of the Kyoto machiya house. A long entrance walk lined with bamboo leads in from the street, screening the hotel from the traffic on Higashiyama. The tea house in the garden, reached by a bridge, is used for tea ceremonies and small dinners.

Rooms and suites

The 123 rooms and suites are among the largest in the city, from about 45 square metres upwards, with deep soaking tubs, sliding screens and either a garden view or a view over the roofs of the temples. The suites on the upper floor have terraces over the pond. A separate wing holds 57 residences sold to private owners.

Dining

The restaurants line the garden side of the ground floor. Sushi Wakon is a counter of a handful of seats run with a Tokyo sushi master's team. Fuju serves kaiseki and a teppanyaki counter. The Brasserie handles breakfast and a French-leaning menu through the day with a terrace on the pond, and the Lounge and Bar take tea in the afternoon and whisky at night. Shakusui-en's tea house hosts private kaiseki dinners.

Wellness

The spa is on the lower level with seven treatment rooms, a 20-metre indoor pool under a skylight, a fitness centre and Japanese-style baths. Treatments draw on Kyoto ingredients such as matcha and yuzu.

Weddings and events

The hotel has a ballroom and a set of meeting rooms on the ground and lower floors, and a wedding chapel; the garden and the tea house are the settings that couples ask for. Many Japanese weddings here combine a Shinto ceremony at a nearby shrine with a reception in the ballroom. Capacities are not given here.

Location

Higashiyama is the eastern hill district of Kyoto, and the hotel's neighbours are the Sanjusangendo hall of the thousand Kannon statues, Myoho-in and the Kyoto National Museum, all within a few minutes on foot. Kiyomizu-dera and Gion are a short taxi ride north. Kyoto Station is about ten minutes by car, with Shichijo station on the Keihan line closer still. Kansai International Airport is about 75 minutes by the Haruka express from Kyoto Station, and Osaka's Itami airport about an hour by road. It is the luxury hotel in Kyoto with a garden older than the city's famous temples.