“Yuki no Hotel” (“Hotel of Snow”), Mt. Rokko (Rokkosan) Hotel, Kobe., c. 1930.

“Yuki no Hotel” (“Hotel of Snow”), Mt. Rokko (Rokkosan) Hotel, Kobe., c. 1930. Hikers are walking toward the Mt. Rokko (Rokkosan) Hotel, newly opened in 1929. A ropeway would be erected in 1931 to more easily ferry guests and visitors from Kobe to the hotel.

“The original hotel was opened in 1929 as a branch of the Takarazuka Hotel, before later operating as an independent hotel.

“In the early 1900s, rival railroad companies Hanshin-Kyuko [‘Hankyu’] Electric Railway and Hanshin Electric Railway competed fiercely to develop the area atop Mt. Rokko. Hankyu, which had constructed a terminal at Kobe ca. 1920 connecting the city with Takarazuka, Osaka and Kyoto, were the first to open a hotel on Rokkosan with the opening of the Rokkosan Hotel in 1929. In 1931 they erected a ropeway to ferry guests and visitors more easily from the city to the ridge. (Not to be outdone, Hanshin would open the Rokko Cable Line one year later, followed by the Rokko Oriental Hotel in 1934. The Rokko Oriental Hotel, which had been rebuilt in 1968, closed its doors in 2007 and sits empty and overgrown.)

“The Rokkosan was a 2-story wood-frame building, with 25 guest rooms and a cafe/restaurant. It was designed by architect Masaharu Furuzuka, one of the Osaka-Kobe area’s leading Modernist architects. Furuzuka also designed the Takarazuka Hotel in 1926.

“Even though the Rokkosan Hotel received a national designation as a Heritage of Industrial Modernization property in 2007, recognized as a leading example of the pre-war modernist architecture in the Osaka-Kobe region, its structure did not meet contemporary earthquake-resistance standards and Hankyu reluctantly closed its doors in December 2014. The hotel was demolished in June 2015.

“The Rokkosan area is the mountainous area running from Kobe to Takarazuka. In the late 1800s and early 1900s the mountains became popular as a resort area with a number of foreigners building holiday villas. Various mountain roads are named after some of the early foreign residents. The nearby Kobe Golf Club, which was opened in 1903 by English expat Arthur Hasketh Groom, was Japan’s first golf course.”

– “Historic Rokkosan Hotel to Close”, Japan Property Central, December 16, 2015

Panoramic view of the Mt. Rokko Hotel and cable car station at the summit, c. 1935.