ART GARDEN VILLA
Futuristic art auberge. Quiet, design-obsessed, and intensely curated. Think less "resort" and more "living inside an architecture museum." Sustainability runs through the whole project — solar panels on the gallery roof, recycled cardboard tube structures, locally sourced food. The scale is human and intimate: only ten villas on the entire property.
Villa guests get exclusive museum access from 6:00–9:00 a.m. and 5:30–9:00 p.m. — well worth setting an early alarm to have the floating galleries entirely to yourself.
Why It Matters
The only place in the world where you can sleep inside recreations of Shigeru Ban's most celebrated experimental houses — the Paper House, the Wall-Less House, the House of Double-Roof. The on-site museum has eight gallery units that literally float and can be rearranged on a water basin using Hiroshima's shipbuilding technology. Featured by AFAR as one of Japan's Best Hotels to Book in 2023 and listed in the Michelin Guide and Tablet Hotels.
Opened in 2023 on a 4.6-hectare coastal site in Otake City, SIMOSE is one of Japan's most architecturally singular places to stay. Pritzker Prize-winner Shigeru Ban designed every structure here — ten all-suite villas, a French restaurant, and the world's first art museum with movable floating galleries — as one unified complex facing the Seto Inland Sea. Each villa is a distinct architectural statement, from a house built of recycled paper tubes to an open-plan space with no permanent walls, and no two nights here are remotely the same.
Where You'll Stay
10 room types available
Cross Wall House
The only villa at SIMOSE designed entirely new for this site rather than being a recreation of a prior Ban work — an homage to John Hejduk, Ban's mentor at Cooper Union. Two intersecting reinforced concrete walls in a cross pattern support CLT (cross-laminated timber) slabs floating above the sloping site, so no retaining walls are needed. The top-floor bathroom is a full living room-style suite with a hinoki (Japanese cypress) bath and daybed with unobstructed sea views.
Hollywood Twin (W1,200×L2,050mm × 2) · 85 sqmFurniture House
A remake of a 1995 Lake Yamanaka home built on the concept that factory-made furniture — bookshelves, closets — can serve as both walls and structural pillars. The idea flips conventional construction: furniture carries the roof. Sofas and lampshades are made from cardboard. This is the largest villa in terms of guest capacity (up to four people), includes a Japanese-style tatami room with sunken table and a full kitchen, and is the only forest villa welcoming guests from age 10 and above.
Hollywood Twin (W1,200×L2,050mm × 2) + 2 futon sets (W970×L1,950mm × 2) · 110 sqmHouse of Double-Roof
A remake of a 1993 Lake Yamanaka retreat designed for heavy snow loads using a distinctive double-roof structure where roof and ceiling are physically separated. At SIMOSE, the villa steps down with the hillside topography — living area, then a terrace under the large overhanging roof, then the lower-level bedroom and bath. Climb the spiral staircase up to the roof terrace to find a Jacuzzi tub and daybed.
Hollywood Twin (W1,100×L2,050mm × 2) · 105 sqmKielsteg House A
One of five waterfront villas built using Kielsteg — an Austrian stressed-skin timber panel system normally hidden inside structures, here used expressly and decoratively for walls, roof, and louvers. The interior is Western in style with no internal partitions: one continuous living space where the lounge faces the water basin and the indoor bathroom is lined in Towada stone, a pale volcanic rock quarried in Aomori Prefecture. Views directly onto the floating coloured gallery units.
Hollywood Twin (W1,200×L2,050mm × 2) · 55 sqmKielsteg House B
Same Kielsteg structural system as the other waterfront villas, but this one is furnished in Japanese style — sliding shoji-style doors and tatami mats. The indoor bath is Japanese cypress (hinoki), which fills the room with a faint woody fragrance when hot water runs. A living room faces the water basin and the floating gallery units.
Hollywood Twin (W1,200×L2,050mm × 2) · 55 sqmKielsteg House C
The most requested of the waterfront villas, and with good reason. This is the only unit where the twin beds are positioned directly facing the sea through large glass doors — you wake up looking straight at the Seto Inland Sea. The indoor bathroom is Towada stone. And on the terrace there's a Jacuzzi bath, so you can soak outdoors with the sea breeze and island views. Staying here and not spending an evening in that Jacuzzi would be a mistake.
Hollywood Twin (W1,200×L2,050mm × 2) · 55 sqmKielsteg House D
Another Kielsteg-structure waterfront villa, this time with twin beds lightly separated by curtains. The living room faces the sea and the indoor bathroom features a freestanding bathtub — a slightly more hotel-like aesthetic compared to the stone baths of the other units, but still firmly within the same architectural vocabulary.
Hollywood Twin (W1,200×L2,050mm × 2) · 55 sqmKielsteg House E
The most traditionally Japanese of the five waterfront villas: tatami mat flooring and a sunken kotatsu table (a low table with a built-in heater beneath, quintessentially Japanese). Indoor bath in Japanese cypress. The Kielsteg structure — with its distinctive curved cross-section panels used as louvers — filters light in characteristic rippled patterns across the tatami.
Twin (W1,200×L2,050mm × 2) · 55 sqmPaper House
A recreation of Ban's landmark 1995 Lake Yamanaka villa — the first building in Japan to receive structural certification for paper tubes as a permanent material. One hundred and ten recycled paper tubes, each 28cm in diameter, are arranged in an S-shape to form the rooms. Light filters between the columns. The S-shape of tubes also wraps around an open-air bath. It's an architectural manifesto you sleep inside.
Hollywood Twin (W1,200×L2,050mm × 2) · 100 sqmWall-Less House
A recreation of a 1997 Karuizawa vacation home. Three sides are enclosed entirely by sliding glass doors that retract to blur the line between inside and the surrounding forest and sea beyond. Kitchen, bath, and living space all share one 'universal floor,' divided only by sliding doors. Original Shigeru Ban-designed furniture and natural fabrics throughout. There are no permanent walls — just glass, trees, and sky.
Hollywood Twin (W1,200×L2,050mm × 2) · 115 sqmThe Property
Eat & Drink
3 venues on property
Restaurant
On Property
How you'll actually spend your days.
Walk the 4.6-hectare grounds exploring each of Shigeru Ban's buildings — the mirrored 190-metre glass screen, the oval cypress-beam entrance hall, the coloured floating galleries, the French restaurant, the herb garden, and the signage system designed by Kenya Hara of Hara Design Institute. Each structure repays close observation.
The property makes a strong base for day excursions. Miyajima Island (Itsukushima Shrine with its floating torii) is about 20 km away. Iwakuni's Kintai Bridge, one of Japan's most famous wooden arch bridges, is about 12 km away. Both can be reached by car or public transport.
Wander through the botanical garden planted with flower and plant species that appear in Gallé's Art Nouveau artworks — roses, irises, and seasonal wildflowers. Early morning, during the villa-exclusive access window, the garden is completely private.
Several villas have spacious terraces suited for morning yoga or stretching with sea views. Cited in itineraries from property partners as a signature way to start the day.
Climb the gentle slope over the exhibition hall to the rooftop observation terrace for views across the Seto Inland Sea islands — Miyajima, Atatajima, Etajima — and back down to the eight coloured floating galleries in the water basin. Particularly striking after dark when the galleries are illuminated.
Explore approximately 500 works assembled over half a century by Yumiko Shimose — from traditional Japanese dolls and Hina doll collections to Art Nouveau glassware by Emile Gallé and Daum Frères, and paintings by Matisse, Chagall, Braque, and Kaii Higashiyama. The eight movable gallery units can be rearranged in seven different configurations depending on the exhibition. Public hours: 9:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m. (closed Mondays). Villa guests get exclusive access 6:00–9:00 a.m. and 5:30–9:00 p.m.
Amenities & Practical Info
The details that matter for planning.
Complimentary Wi-Fi throughout all villas and common areas.
Included with villa stays: tickets to the adjacent Simose Art Museum. Villa guests also receive exclusive early-morning (6:00–9:00 a.m.) and evening (5:30–9:00 p.m.) access — outside normal public hours. Not available during exhibition changeover periods.
Full gym with Technogym equipment, housed in the cedar-clad reception building. Open 6:00 a.m.–10:00 p.m.
All villas stocked with Bamford luxury bath and body products.
Each villa includes a stocked minibar and wine cellar with juices and alcoholic beverages. Included complimentary in All Inclusive and Simple Stay plans.
Bang & Olufsen Bluetooth speaker in every villa.
Nespresso coffee machine in every villa.
Serta mattresses in all villas.
A botanical garden planted with species of flowers and plants beloved by Art Nouveau craftsman Emile Gallé. Sits on the north side of the property between the villas and the museum. Open 9:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m. (public hours); villa guests get extended access 6:00 a.m.–9:00 a.m. and 5:30–9:00 p.m.
Rooftop terrace on top of the museum exhibition hall offering panoramic views across the Seto Inland Sea toward Miyajima, Atatajima, and Etajima islands, as well as the coloured floating gallery units below.
All ten villas can be reserved for a private group stay. Contact property directly. Long-term individual villa rentals are also possible upon application.
Reception building is open 24 hours, clad in compressed cedar-wood shingles.
Free on-site parking. No reservation required.
Free shuttle from and to Iwakuni Kintaikyo Airport, Shin-Iwakuni Station, Otake Station, and Kuba/Kuga Station. Advance reservation required. Pick-up 1:00–8:00 p.m.; drop-off 8:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Not available on all plans.
BUILD YOUR SIMOSE ART GARDEN VILLA PLAN
Rooms, dining, spa, and resort experiences — organized into one trip plan.
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