Why you should experience Hanakohro in Tokyo, Japan.
Hanakohro is an intimate urban ryokan where Takanawa's garden culture, Japanese craftsmanship and contemporary hospitality converge inside the historic Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa estate.
Set along Zakuro-zaka near Sakura-zaka and just steps from Shinagawa Station, the ryokan opens toward a 20,000-square-meter Japanese garden designed by Teiji Kusuoka, whose landscape contains 16 varieties of seasonal flowers, 210 cherry trees representing 17 varieties and historic structures embedded among ponds, paths and mature planting. Creative director Ryu Kosaka of A.N.D. translated that landscape inward through pale timber, tatami, restrained Japanese detailing and a design philosophy centered on traditional craft, while calligrapher Kinko Kikuchi created the Hanakohro logotype after producing title calligraphy for NHK historical dramas including Atsuhime and Gou: Himetachi no Sengoku. The defining revelation arrives in the relationship between those interiors and Kusuoka's garden, where the flowers that change across the grounds supply the names and seasonal character of the ryokan's individual accommodations. The result is a property where Teiji Kusuoka, Ryu Kosaka and Kinko Kikuchi transform Takanawa's garden landscape into a contemporary expression of Japanese hospitality built through named creative authorship.
What you should know about Hanakohro.
Hanakohro is best known for opening on November 1, 2016 as part of the comprehensive reinvention of Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa, when Prince Hotels converted the property's Japanese accommodation into a distinct ryokan operation conceived to bring traditional hospitality into a major Tokyo hotel. The project emerged during a redevelopment that reopened Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa after work beginning in January 2016, establishing Hanakohro as a separately identified hospitality concept within a property whose own history reaches to the opening of Takanawa Prince Hotel in November 1953. Hanakohro subsequently entered Forbes Travel Guide with a Four-Star rating in 2020 before receiving its first Five-Star rating in 2021, becoming the first Japanese ryokan to achieve the guide's highest distinction. That Five-Star status developed into a sustained international record, with Forbes Travel Guide 2026 marking Hanakohro's sixth consecutive year at Five-Star level. The 2016 creation, Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa transformation, 1953 institutional lineage, 2020 Forbes debut, historic 2021 Five-Star elevation and six-year Five-Star sequence establish Hanakohro as an unusually successful attempt to position the Japanese ryokan within Tokyo's international luxury-hotel landscape.
Small Luxury Hotels of the World opened another chapter in May 2025 when Hanakohro joined the London-founded collection, connecting the ryokan with an organization established in 1992 and encompassing more than 600 independently spirited hotels across more than 90 countries. The SLH partnership placed Hanakohro within an international network centered on small-scale independent hospitality while preserving its relationship with Seibu Prince Hotels & Resorts and the wider Seibu Group. Hilton's alliance with Small Luxury Hotels of the World subsequently brought Hanakohro into Hilton's global booking and loyalty ecosystem, extending the property's international reach through a distribution relationship fundamentally different from its original Prince Hotels positioning. Together, Small Luxury Hotels of the World, Seibu Prince Hotels & Resorts, Seibu Group and Hilton extend Hanakohro's 2016 creation into a new international phase, connecting a Tokyo ryokan concept with global luxury distribution while retaining the institutional character that produced it.
How to fold Hanakohro into your trip.
Hanakohro works as the anchor for an afternoon tracing samurai memory, modern Japanese collecting and Takanawa's emergence as a gateway between old Edo and contemporary Tokyo.
Begin at Sengakuji Temple, where the graves of Asano Naganori and the Ako retainers transformed the temple into the enduring spiritual center of the Forty-seven Ronin story after the retainers avenged their lord in 1702 and surrendered to shogunal authority. Continue to Ebara Hatakeyama Museum of Art, founded by industrialist Issey Hatakeyama in 1964 around a collection now encompassing 1,300 Japanese, Chinese and Korean works, including six National Treasures and 33 Important Cultural Properties spanning tea utensils, calligraphy, ceramics, lacquerware and Noh costumes. Conclude at MoN Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives, where Kengo Kuma & Associates designed a spiral, timber-rich cultural building within TAKANAWA GATEWAY CITY containing 1,500 square meters of exhibition space, an LED theater and a 100-tatami cultural space. The progression moves from Sengakuji Temple's Edo memory through Hatakeyama's twentieth-century collecting into Kengo Kuma's new cultural institution, revealing how Takanawa continues translating historical Japanese character into successive forms of cultural expression.
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