This Deserted Hotel Was Once The Height Of Luxury, But Now Its Crumbling Remains Are All That’s Left

As you prowl in the hotel’s shadow, it’s clear that no one inhabits the husk it’s become. Trees and shrubs envelop the lower floors in an emerald mass and fight fiercely to reclaim the road approaching its entrance. Plants are even forcing their way through the concrete blacktop as if warning you to turn back.

You discover traces of the people who lived and worked here once. Nature reclaimed the abandoned vehicles that they left to rust in the elements. It makes you wonder once more what went on here. What circumstances made the former inhabitants leave their transport — and the hotel — far behind them?

The thought fills you with such trepidation you hesitate at the hotel doors. What are you going to find inside? They say that curiosity killed the cat, but most forget the second verse. It’s satisfaction that brought it back. So you take a deep breath and prepare to step inside.

The Hachijo Royal Hotel is a crumbling ruin now, but back in its heyday it was glorious to behold. It had to be, because in the ’60s Japanese tourism was far more limited than travel in other parts of the world. At the time the government restricted how far abroad its citizens could go.

Why would they do that, you ask? Well, it’s simple really. For the money. Think about it ‒ fewer yen spent abroad meant more coming into the Japanese economy. It wasn’t impossible for citizens to get a passport and travel out of the country, but it was more difficult than it had to be.

That’s where the Hachijo Royal Hotel came in. Japan, and Tokyo in particular, is blessed with a close proximity to the Izu Islands, a collection of landmasses of volcanic origin. They’re roughly 110 miles south, which isn’t far by sea. What’s more, the islands enjoy a subtropical climate, so it’s like a holiday getaway in the proverbial backyard.

It was even already set up for visitors. The Imperial Japanese Navy had previously built an airport that the government reappropriated for tourism. Alternatively, one quick ferry ride later and visitors could be setting foot on Izu Island soil. The region’s accessibility and ambiance made it the ideal location for travel a little closer to home.

The Izu Islands couldn’t be a better location for a tourism project. Its volcanic environment supplies hot springs and lush, dense forests. The locale has beaches surrounded by glistening seas. In fact, the government billed the Izu Islands as “The Hawaii of Japan,” which went down well with the public.

Officials poured money into establishing a tourist hub on Izu Islands and rapidly populated the area with multiple hotels. The Hachijo Royal Hotel, which was built on Hachijo-jima island, was arguably the grandest of them with its architects taking inspiration from several other cultures. This was a testament to just how wealthy Japan was.

Sources are divided on the exact date, but a 2017 feature on urbexsession.com stated that the luxurious Hachijo Royal Hotel opened its doors in 1963. By then, Japan’s middle class was experiencing an economic boom and it visited the luxurious hotel in droves. Its architecture is testament to the money invested in it.

To begin with, Greek-style decorations adorn the hotel’s gardens. The main building exterior is based on a style called French Baroque. But perhaps the biggest clue to the hotel’s success was its large statue in the image of Eiji Yasuda, the president of Japan at the time. The sculptor even included his beloved horse too.

But the Hachijo Royal Hotel wasn’t just the biggest in the Izu Islands. It was a solid contender for the biggest hotel in all of Japan. However, as you may have guessed by now, the Hachijo Royal didn’t end with a success story. It wasn’t for the lack of trying, though.

In fact, the hotel experienced a couple of name changes before it finally closed its doors to the wider public in 2006. Initially, the owners tried to rebrand themselves as the Pricia Resort Hachijo, but that moniker didn’t stick. Its title was also later changed to Hachijo Oriental Resort, which proved equally ineffective.

Whatever name you want to call it by, the hotel’s beautiful combination of Eastern and Western design now lies derelict. Its extravagant bars are empty. Nature’s reclaimed the luxurious bath houses. The guest rooms’ former opulence has been stripped away and replaced by a haunting neglected beauty. Yet it’s not without visitors.

You see, there’s still something about the Hachijo Royal Hotel that attracts people, they’re just a different type of clientele. Now sightseers come to see what has befallen the once-grand structure. And you can too, with the help of the urban-exploring YouTube channels such as The Proper People, who recorded a walking tour of the ruins.

The hosts Bryan and Michael document their journey as they approach the hotel’s wild courtyard. The overcast skies add to the building’s oppressive atmosphere, and it’s clear that the area's largely uninhabited. No one tends to the overgrown foliage creeping across the road and threatening to reclaim the hotel’s lower exterior entirely.

The abandoned vehicles are perhaps one of the most foreboding things captured on camera, though. The guys find two of them left by the roadside. One's thick with rust, and its doors are open wide to the elements. The other looks crumpled and broken but reveals something insightful about the scene: these are company cars.

So what disaster could have caused staff to just leave their vehicles and abandon the area entirely? Actually, it was a social shift that finally destroyed the Hachijo Royal Hotel. As the Japanese government’s grip on tourism loosened, its citizens found interest in more comparatively exotic climes. So the hotel’s popularity waned.

Instead of the more convenient “Japan’s Hawaii,” vacationers could visit the actual Hawaii, or other renowned resorts across the world. The result is what you see on the urban explorer videos. The hotel's more akin to a jungle than anything else, its decline accelerated by the subtropical conditions and proximity to the salty ocean air.

In the spirit of adventure, the explorers eschew an entrance through the front doors in favor of the basement. Its interior looks like something from a horror movie, complete with creaking, rotten stairs. Remnants of power tools line the workbenches and industrial supplies have been swept in piles against the walls.

“I already see stairs up,” one of the guys says, “so that’s a good sign.” In their search for a way into the hotel proper, they have to navigate over signs of life before the hotel’s closure. Bags of trash compete for space with a stand still full of umbrellas as eerie reminders of its previous occupants.

The basement does indeed connect to the hotel interior. In fact, the guys find the lobby pretty quickly, which still retains ample proof of posterity. The extravagant chandeliers and marble staircase are all indications of the building’s previous status. The white phone booth installed in the hall dates its design, though.

It’s obvious that the lobby was designed for large numbers of people. It has two check-in counters on either side of the cavernous room, which is silent except for the echoes of the explorers. Someone’s neatly stacked the furniture against the walls, where it’s been left undisturbed, even by potential photographers wanting to recreate a scene.

The telephone booth draws the cameramen back, though. One states, “The telephone booth is really cool.” Curiously, it also holds evidence of the hotel’s more recent occupancy in the form of the telephone inside. As the explorer aptly explains, “The booth looks way older than the phone that’s in it.”

The duo find a door to the hotel bar, no doubt as many patrons did before them. Although severe exposure to the sea air has corroded it, some of the drinks remain left behind. However, the spookiest part about the whole scene is the corroded ceiling fan, which still forlornly rotates in the breeze.

So far so creepy, but the guys haven’t seen anything yet. One corridor leads to a lounge that wouldn’t look out of place on the set of The Shining. Thick black mold lines what’s left of the ceiling and walls. But most jarring is the vibrant red furniture and a beautiful painting that's still preserved in its frame.

Another decaying walkway leads to an area covered by curtained screens. It turns out to be the remains of a gift shop that has largely fallen to neglect. “The floor just collapsed right here into the basement,” an explorer remarks. However, postcards showcasing the area’s dolphins have escaped most of the degradation.

Beyond the collapsing ceilings, Bryan and Michael find a sushi bar remarkably untouched. “Wow,” one remarks, “all the plates and glassware, still perfectly intact. Perfectly usable. That’s pretty rare for how long this place has been abandoned and how open it is. It’s just hard enough to get to, and no one would come here just to vandalize.”

The explorers’ next stop is divided into two halves, which they assume indicates male and female divides. It’s a safe bet since the entrances lead to bath houses. They must have been beautiful once, but the only things in the dry baths now are intrepid plant life and what remains of the ceiling.

Surprisingly, not all the Hachijo Royal Hotel’s facilities are a wreck. For example, the Venus Garden restaurant seems to have weathered the years relatively well. The guys find a couple of unopened beers inside, which in a horror movie would be sure signs of a trap. Were people living at the hotel more recently?

If the hotel was still occupied, the squatters would have plenty of resources left to use. A further examination of the kitchen reveals it’s full of immaculate crockery. “Holy cow,” the cameraman says, “this whole thing is full of little teacups and plates… And this stuff is all still perfectly usable.”

The mystery deepens in a Japanese-style guest room where the duo find slippers left at the door. Nothing remains inside except for some overturned furniture, though. As the explorers remark, there’s no beds inside. In Japanese culture, lots of people sleep on bed mats called futons, which shouldn’t be confused with Western furniture of the same name.

The hall ends in further proof that the hotel could still be inhabitable. One Eastern-style room remains untouched by the mold and decay. The furniture sits as if it had just been laid out, with floor pillows around the low table waiting for a family to return. As testament to its preservation, the cameraman comments, “I’d sleep here.”

The rooms on the opposite side of the hallway are an astonishing contrast, though. One has such a severe mold problem, the cameraman says, “I can’t hang out in here for long.” It’s not just mold either. Other plants have started to grow inside to give the impression that a miniature jungle is growing within.

Across the lobby on the top floor, the explorers find further evidence that people might have been using the hotel recently. A guest bedroom appears completely intact with several apparently used mattresses inside. “It looks like someone was living here,” one of the guys comments. However, if they were, then there’s no sign that anyone remains.

Apparently, the Hachijo Royal Hotel didn’t just cater to eastern tastes, either. In keeping with the architecture, they also had Western-style rooms available. Sadly, rotted beds and an encroaching indoor forest are all that remain of them now. The duo’s explorations end on the hotel roof, its once incredible view warning them of an incoming rainstorm.

It’s truly saddening to think of the hours that architects and craftspeople poured into the Hachijo Grand Hotel, only to have it fall into ruin. And that’s not to mention how much money must have been wasted in its construction and eventual fall. So the real question is, what does the future hold for the hotel?

There’s no clear answer to that because the fate of the Hachijo Royal Hotel remains uncertain. As you’ve seen, it’s in massive disrepair, and it would take a fortune to renovate for public use once again. In fact, it’s not even clear whether the property has an owner, but if they do, they don’t want visitors.

In 2017, entrepreneur and explorer Scott Brills wrote about the hotel on his website. He said, “Although The Royal Hotel is effectively abandoned, it is indeed still owned by some entity. Being private property, it is illegal to enter even the grounds of the hotel, so keep that in mind should you be in the area.”