LUXE Magazine – The Mampei Hotel and John Lennon

In this exclusive LUXE Magazine feature, we step into a mountain retreat where history, elegance, and the spirit of one of music’s greatest icons still linger in the halls.

Nestled in the Kyu-Karuizawa neighborhood at the foot of Mt. Asama, 1,000 metres above sea level, the Mampei Hotel has long offered something beyond accommodation. This is a place where time moves differently, where the outside world fades, and where creative souls have come seeking refuge for over a century.

When the hotel approached its 130th year, it closed for extensive renovations lasting one year and nine months. The grand reopening on October 2nd, 2024 revealed a Mampei returned to its full aesthetic glory. The main building, the Alps Wing, designed by Kume Gonkuro and now designated a national tangible cultural property, embodies a semi-Western elegance so specific to Japan. Since the Meiji Era, these halls have welcomed guests from around the world, each drawn by something difficult to name but impossible to forget.

The main dining room features stained glass by Unozawa Hideo, its motifs spanning golf, tennis, and the ceremonial processions of Edo-era samurai lords. Traditional coffered ceilings, once reserved for feudal residences and the rooms of shoguns, speak quietly of the importance placed on beauty during another age.

In the hotel bar sits a piano, kept in its place of honour. It is easy to imagine a certain guest once playing here, smiling, performing for an audience far more intimate than his usual crowds. From 1976, John Lennon visited the Mampei every year with Yoko Ono and little Sean, staying in the Alps Wing like any other family. Photographs taken by hotel assistant Saimaru-san capture the Lennons enjoying local sweets and the leisure of Karuizawa, their expressions revealing just how relaxed this environment allowed them to be.

Manager Nishikawa Shinji, who joined the hotel in 1981, shares that Lennon spent his days visiting Yoko’s nearby family vacation home and enjoying milk tea and apple pie on the cafe terrace. There is a story of Lennon hearing a kitten crying from within the terrace walls, calling a carpenter to break through, and becoming the proud foster parent of the rescued cat.

The cafe still serves that same menu today. Like the piano in the bar, certain things here remain unchanged, holding quietly onto the memory of those who once passed through.

Alfie Goodrich : HOTEL PHOTOS / Masako Teddy : STORY