If there's a hotel's story that's deserving of a movie, it would be Sasaya Hotel's. The hotel's tale begins in 1893 when Sakai Ryonosuke sought to revive the flagging fortunes and industry of his hometown of Togura by turning it into an onsen town. He succeeded in finding a hot spring vein, and the town thus celebrated with a festival involving dancers and float parades. However, the region's heavy rains and flooding would ravage the area in 1900, and along with it, the first Togura Onsen. Ryonosuke did not lose heart and set about finding a new location to revive the onsen. In 1902, he discovered another vein, and a new Togura Onsen was opened along the right bank of the Chikuma River. The family opened Seiryokan Sasaya Hotel in 1903, its construction overseen by Ryonosuke's brother-in-law, Fujii Iemon. The moniker of 'hotel' was a suggestion of Ryonosuke's son, Sakai Seiichi, to make the property more appealing to the culture-savvy Japanese and perhaps even foreign travelers.

But the kami of fates and misfortunes would unleash repeated tragedies upon the Sakai family in the next few years. First in 1904 when Seiichi lost his life fighting in the Russo-Japanese War, then in 1905 when Ryonosuke collapsed from overwork and died of pneumonia, and finally the loss of the second Togura Onsen in 1907, once again due to floods. It was during these trying times that the ladies of Sasaya stepped into the limelight and take charge of Sasaya Hotel. These were Ryonosuke's foster mother Ren, Ryonosuke's widow Taka, and Seiichi's widow Chiyo. They would diligently instill the spirit of hospitality in their workers, teaching them the value of attentive service and beautiful manners. Fujii Iemon also returned to support Ryonosuke's family by helping finance the hotel.

Sasaya Hotel's fortunes finally turned in 1912 when Togura Train Station was finally opened, bringing activity back to the town. In 1916, Sasaya Hotel returned to the left bank of the  Chikuma River and reestablished the Togura Onsen a third time, where it remains open to this day. A contributor to Sasaya Hotel's enduring legacy was the construction of a levee on the Chikuma River, which finally solved the region's flooding woes.

When Seiichi's son Shuuichi became an adult, he married a woman named Mitsu, who joined the ladies of Sasaya in running the hotel. Shuuichi would later assist her in 1931, when he retired from being a bank manager and began operating the hotel as his new full-time endeavor. These were prosperous times as they were able to commission the Japanese architect Endo Arata to construct a villa for the hotel. Endo was a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright, the famed American architect whose works influence residential and commercial buildings around the world even to this day. While Endo worked on designing the villa's building, he recommended his gardener and landscaper friend Abe Sadaaki to build the villa's garden. The villa was completed in 1934 and would later be designated as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2003, rechristened as Honenmushi.

After the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the management of Sasaya Hotel realized that the changing times required for them to also transform the hotel. They demolished the wooden buildings and replace it with a seven-story structure made of concrete. Shuuichi's heir, Sakai Eiichi, would express having second thoughts about this renovation later on. They once again renovated the hotel in 1993, back into an establishment boasting classical architecture, after celebrating Togura Kamiyamada Onsen's 100th anniversary. The transformation was completed in 1997, and its grand reopening took place that same year.

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Design and Architecture

The current incarnation of Sasaya Hotel is thanks to the renovations that were done back in 1993 until 1997. It blends together Japanese and Western aesthetics, making use of traditional sukiya-zukuri and shoin-zukuri designs. There are also hybrid Japanese-Western rooms with a separate tatami area and Western-style living room. It could be argued that the current architecture of Sasaya Hotel was meant to match the well-preserved design of the villa annex that would later be renamed Honenmushi. This could be seen in facilities such as the hotel annex's library, Shakunage, and the hotel's bar, Cup & Glass.

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