Two hours and 20 minutes by Shinkansen from Tokyo to Morioka, then 25 minutes by road. That's how close Azuma Farm Koiwai sits to the Japanese capital, and yet how far it feels from the Japan most luxury travellers know.
The man who identified that gap is Fumitomo Hayase, a career hotelier who spent 12 years overseeing the development of Aman Tokyo and Amanemu before founding his Kyoto-based hospitality company, Naru, in 2017. His first project with Naru was Azumi Setoda, launched in 2021 in collaboration with Adrian Zecha – the legendary hotelier who founded Aman – and built around the ryokan tradition, channelling Japan through the sea and the pan-Asian cultural exchange that shaped it.
Koiwai scenery
Azuma Farm, the new brand Naru has developed in partnership with East Japan Railway Company, turns its back on the coast entirely. Azuma means ‘the East’, a pointed nod toward Tohoku, a region that sits largely outside the established luxury travel routes around Japan. Where most high-end itineraries cluster around Kyoto, the Hakone onsen belt, Nikko and the Seto Inland Sea, Tohoku draws its identity from Jōmon-period (14,000 BCE to 300 BCE) communities that predate the westward migrations across the archipelago, and an agrarian, mountain-rooted way of life never shaped by the tea ceremony or the classical ryokan aesthetic. It is a Japan that’s less mediated, less packaged and until now, largely underserved by serious hospitality.
Zecha’s influence on Azuma Farm has been indirect but foundational: a philosophy absorbed by Hayase through years of close collaboration, distilled into a single guiding principle – that the site, not the designer’s ego, determines what a place should become.
Tour Azuma Farm Koiwai
The first property, Azuma Farm Koiwai, opens on 23 April within historic Koiwai Farm in Iwate Prefecture. Begun 130 years ago as a reclamation project on barren volcanic terrain, today, the grounds span 3,000 hectares of diverse forest and pasture, shaped by generations of careful stewardship.
Hayase’s new project occupies eight hectares of that landscape, and designer Shiro Miura of Kyoto firm Rokkakuya understood from the outset that the architecture had to take second billing. He and the Koiwai Farm team walked the forest together, selecting and felling each tree individually before a plan was drawn.
The layout takes its cue from Jōmon-period settlements found throughout this region: villas arranged around a generous central clearing, with distinct zones for sleeping, gathering, eating and bathing. Twenty-two Forest Villas at 65.7 sq m and two larger Garden Villas at 87.4 sq m sit quietly within the tree line, opening to splendid views of Mount Iwate.
The hero material is century-old red pine, grown in Koiwai’s own managed forest. Ordinarily prone to warping, here, the timber is straight-grained and structural enough to form the trusses of the main building and clad every exterior surface. Ceilings are swathed in Koiwai cedar; columns in the guest rooms and dining hall use Iwate chestnut; furniture takes ash and oak, both broadleaf species native to this part of Tohoku. Even the earthen walls carry a local imprint: Koiwai pasture grass substitutes for conventional straw.
Beyond the villas is a fire-centred gathering space where evenings are warmed by glowing embers, whilst an onsen facility is due to open this November. Meanwhile, dining draws on Koiwai’s own produce and the wider Tohoku region, with seafood from the Sanriku coast paired with mountain ingredients from the interior.
As for guest diversions, the offerings mine Iwate’s cultural bounty. Horseback rides through the Ainosawa pastures connect guests to a horse-breeding tradition several centuries old. A Nanbu ironware tour takes visitors to the workshop of Koizumi Nizaemon, an 11th-generation master kettle-smith operating since 1659, where guests commission their own iron kettle – the ultimate turn-down gift that takes two to three months to complete. Seasonal hiking programmes thread through the volcanic plateau of Hachimantai. Excursions into Joboji Urushi lacquerware, the Tono wasabi fields, and the sake traditions of Ninohe extend the radius further, positioning the property as a base for serious regional exploration.
Azuma Farm Koiwai is located at 68-77 Maruyachi, Shizukuishi, Iwate District, Iwate 020-0507, Japan