It was in 1877 when Sennosuke Yamaguchi decided to establish an inn catering only to international visitors in Miyanoshita. He bought Fujiya Inn, a Japanese-style inn, that name meant Wisteria Inn, not Mt.Fuji. He re-opened it in 1878 under the name Hakone Miyanoshita Fugakukan Fujiya Hotel as a branch of Yokohama Jinpuro Inn where his adoptive father Kumezo Yamaguchi worked as a manager. There had already been Naraya Inn where foreigners could stay, but the buildings and management styles of both Naraya Inn and Fujiya Inn were totally traditional, then Sennosuke remodeled Fujiya Hotel by constructing a Western-style building and started offering Western services; for example, he had fresh bread and meat delivered from Odawara every morning.

The third president, Shozo Yamaguchi, is remembered for many unconventional and brilliant achievements as hotel manager—namely, the establishment of Fujiya Motorcar Company, the opening of the Hakone Hotel, and the construction of the dining wing and Flower Palace at Fujiya Hotel. He was admired and assigned as the manager of the new Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright was famous. At the same time, his tenure was besieged by many crises, including the sudden Great Kanto Earthquake and the insidious approach of the Second World War. Despite these adversities, his never-say-die attitude remained constant and he laid the foundation of today’s hotel services by seizing business opportunities to realize a new style of Japanese hotel management inherited from both his biological and adoptive fathers.

At 11:58 a.m. on September 1, 1923, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 (or 6.0 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale) struck the south Kanto region (Greater Tokyo Area). Hakone did not escape the damage—the chimneys and roofing tiles on COMFY LODGE & RESTFUL COTTAGE and THE MAIN of Fujiya Hotel were seriously damaged. Structures in the hotel gardens completely collapsed and Japanese-style buildings and the hotel’s KITCHEN were also heavily damaged. Meanwhile, the impact of the road damage between Ohiradai and Miyanoshita was far greater than the damage to buildings, which prompted Fujiya Hotel to form a garrison to maintain public peace in the area and work towards reconstruction.

Following amendments to the Act on Promotion of Seismic Retrofitting of Buildings in 2013 and in light of seismic diagnosis results, a decision was made to undertake earthquake-resistant work on the hotel in order to prioritize the safety and security of guests and employees. To still communicate the enduring value of Fujiya Hotel together with the many generations of past, current and the future. The renovation work undertaken combined the hotel’s legacy with new technology and left the intrinsic value of the buildings. A design strategy emphasizing moderate restoration, the creation of spaces only possible in a wooden building, and the melding of new technology with tradition was the scheduled blueprint brought forth by the perpetual trust of Fujiya Hotel’s guests and employees through successive generations.

After two years of major renovations and the ups and downs of the Meiji, Taisho, Showa, and Heisei periods now in the past, all newly renovated buildings of Fujiya Hotel are ready for a grand opening in July 2020 in Reiwa. The buildings that survived numerous natural disasters and the ravages of war will be reborn as a hotel for a new generation where the old meets the new, equipped with a level of safety and comfort in step with the times.