Arashiyama House MAMA

At Arashiyama House MAMA, a narrow strip of light catches the corner of a wooden cabinet. It’s a good cabinet, though under normal circumstances you wouldn’t give it a second look. Here you find yourself following the grain around the corner. This is how a hotel room in Kyoto can make you late for absolutely nothing.

The house, near Hankyu Arashiyama Station, was once a holiday retreat for railway employees and their families. The gate, the roof beams and the established garden trees have all stayed on. In one bedroom, a rough beam runs above a wall of finely gridded screens. The beam has all the irregularity the grid can bear. By the window, two chairs face each other across a table just big enough for a teapot and two cups.

Kyoto craftspeople made furniture for the ten guest rooms, each arranged to suit its particular spot in the house. What surprises you is how far that care extends. A fold of cloth comes to rest on the floor beside a solid timber bed. At the desk, a slender lamp lights the pages of a book and leaves the rest of the wall to itself. It’s the sort of light under which you read three pages, make a cup of tea and read the same three pages again with considerable satisfaction.

There’s a pizzeria by the entrance, and the smell of dough baking is a persuasive reason to rejoin the world. The garden makes an equally good case for staying put. Bamboo and ferns come right up alongside the corridor, and in one room you can look out into the planting from the bath. Beyond the window, a rough-edged slab of stone is broad enough for a bottle and two glasses. The branches outside turn up again in the bathwater. Give it a moment. They’re easier to see once you’ve stopped moving.