Reika Shimizu Gojo | Gion | Ett Kyoto-machi-hus med över 100 års historia.Upp till 8 personer kan stanna

The story of Reikaku began after our family had the opportunity to live overseas for a number of years. Similar to most other Japanese residing overseas, the experience has reinforced our love for the way of life in Japan and reminds us of how under appreciative we were whilst we were living in Tokyo. Over the years, we have found ourselves spending more and more of our holiday breaks returning to Japan and this allowed us the opportunity to venture out of the Tokyo Metropolitan area and into Kyoto where we began to appreciate the immaculate beauty as well as depth of tradition and culture in Japan.

Similar to other tourists, we visited a number of the famous temples across Kyoto without really knowing which part of the City we were initially. Overtime, as we came to become more familiar with Kyoto, it was clear that our favorite part of the city is the area between Gion-Shijo and Kiyomizu-Gojo and thus naturally, that is where we wanted to spend the majority of our time. It was also during this time that we came to the realization that good accommodation around the area is very limited due to the fact that it is the most prestigious historical part of the city and therefore is regulated by very strict zoning code of Kyoto.

In order to have an authentic experience in Kyoto, we felt it wasn’t sufficient to be strolling around historical temples and the old streets of Kyoto filled with traditional buildings hundreds of years old and at same time to be spending the night nesting in a modern hotel accommodation building that is no different from anywhere else in the world. That was the moment when we decided that we would want to have a Machiya (a traditional Japanese house) of our own to be able to enjoy the essence of Kyoto in its truest form.

Our name Reikaku ( 麗閣 ) was carefully chosen to reflect the spirit and principle we strive to operate under. Rei ( 麗）in Japanese stands for beauty and Kaku（閣）is defined as a place of residence for someone special. A beautiful place of residence for someone special is the experience we would like to provide to our guests. All our Machiyas are proprietary owned and carefully crafted with specialists located locally in Kyoto to preserve uniqueness of each property. They are accommodations that we consider our home whenever we are in Kyoto.

Our interest in preserving the culture landscape of Kyoto is the underlying reason behind why all the accommodations offered at Reikaku are fully restored Machiya that date back to the early 1900s. At Reikaku we’ve made the decision to focus on the restoration of Machiyas in our favorite area of the city in between the historical area of Gion-Shijo and Kiyomizu-Gojo in the Higashiyama-Ku. This area has the highest concentration of historical sites in Kyoto and is only a short stroll to the central commercial shopping area of Kyoto.