AKIRA KOSAKA, MANAGER OF THE MAGICAL RYOKAN UMI NO SHOGETSU ON THE ISE BAY EXPLAINS THE HOTEL'S PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHOICE OF USING RITZWELL FURNITURE TO REST BODY AND MIND.
Traveling is resting the soul. A break which every rich life desperately needs.
Umi no Shogetsu is a typical Japanese ryokan built on the slope of the hill facing the Ise bay, on the southern tip of the Chita peninsula, about 350 km west of Tokyo. Ten rooms in four separate buildings, each with a private open-air tub and an enchanting view over the bay where the sea meets the sky.
The freedom of contemplating the horizon wrapped in pure comfort.
“About ten years have gone by since I started working here”, Akira Kosaka, manager of the establishment, tells us, “but I never get tired of watching the scenery. The view here can heal you. Our ryokan opened 16 years ago and it is the second on the peninsula of Chita (the first is in Gero) because the president of the group we belong to is from this region.”
The concept of Umi no Shogetsu is “returning to the sea and becoming the sky”: in fact, the view from each room is free to wander off into the distance, until the horizon, and the mind can travel until it takes off from the earth and flies into the sky. Ritzwell’s BEATRIX High Back Easy Chair (winner of the 2019 Red Dot Design Award) is an ideal match for this context, as it envelops you with its wide headrest and the softness of its shapes in a unique combination of wood, leather, and fabric where you can surrender to relaxation and contemplation.
Ritzwell furniture to get in touch with the natural surroundings.
“All rooms are equipped with binoculars to observe the sea and guest often say that they constantly feel like dozing off in the armchairs. Sometimes they make a reservation simply to come and take a nap during the day. One client commented that quality seating can be recognised as soon as you sit down and touch the materials with your hands. Our ryokan is highly relaxing both thanks to the interior design of the rooms and to the Ritzwell furniture which, with its soft shapes and natural materials, conveys a strong sense of peace. The merit certainly also goes to the craftsmen who make these pieces as they listen to the sound of the waves – Ritzwell’s factory in Itoshima, in fact, is right by the Genkai Sea, next to the beach”. “Every space have been designed in a unique way with different compositions of furniture, some even have historical Ritzwell pieces like the Suono 227 Personal Chair (sold between 2006 and 2014 and no longer in production today), which has become increasingly fascinating over time because the colour and texture of the leather upholstery keep becoming softer and softer. In the past we used many Ritzwell products and when I visited the showroom in Osaka to choose pieces that could match the recently renovated interiors of Umi no Shogetsu, I was able to see that also the more recent models had a very high quality". Thanks to Akira Kosaka choices today in the ryokan you can look at the sea wrapped-up in the BEATRIX High Back Easy Chair with its BEATRIX Ottoman footstool or in the RIVAGE Lounge Chair, combined with the MO Side Table and MO BRIDGE Small Desk. The MO BRIDGE Stool, JK Coffee Table, JABARA AV Board and OS Side Table also contributes to create a welcoming atmosphere. "The shapes of these pieces have a universal design and convey a sense of relaxation and beauty. Their elegance expresses the Japanese DNA: all pieces are refined, they naturally adapt both to Japanese style and to Western style and it is unbelievable how they seem to enter into a harmonious dialogue with the existing furniture”.
Ritzwell’s collections perfectly match any interior design project and the fact that you can place semi-customized orders makes it even easier to create made-to-measure solutions by combining colours and materials in an original way.
“It is highly satisfying to see our customers spend their moments of relaxation here, for instance by spending the whole day watching the ocean from the open-air tub or from their room. When the sea is calm, there are plenty of fishing boats coming and going from the Nagoya harbour and in the winter, the sun sets directly on the Ise bay creating a simply exceptional scene”.
The sweet luxury of doing nothing.
“In their daily lives, people are constantly busy. Here we would like to offer them the luxury of doing nothing but enjoying the natural scenery that surrounds the hotel and the interiors of the building. Our wish is to give them an extraordinary experience of escape, an oasis of peace reserved only for adults where our guests can feel like in a second home but with the comfort of a resort”. Thanks to its geographic location, the ryokan usually accommodates many tourists from the area of Nagoya, but after the pandemic also local guests from the Chita peninsula have grown in number.
“We are happy to welcome people who did not imagine such a beautiful place existed right next to their homes. Thanks to the new Shin-Meishin and Isewanga motorways, it has also become easier to reach us. Furthermore, we are in a comfortable location for those who come from the region of Kanto, in addition to being only a two-hour drive from Nara and Kyoto.”
About one third of the hotel’s guests come back a second time and become regular customers also thanks to the dinners prepared by chef Kyo Kaiseki, who uses local ingredients and mainly whatever is caught in the close-by Ise bay.
Photocredit by Tonari_no_koho
