John Lennon and the Mampei Hotel, Karuizawa

John Lennon's link to Karuizawa is the Mampei Hotel. He came with Yoko Ono and their son Sean every summer from 1976, four summers in all, the last before his death in 1980. The hotel's history room shows a piano he played, and the cafe terrace still serves the milk tea he taught the staff to make.

Four summers in the mountains

Karuizawa is a resort town in Nagano Prefecture. From 1976 the Lennon family spent their summers there, staying at the Mampei. GoNOMAD reports they used Room 128 in the Alps wing, which Kume Gonkuro designed in 1936. Japan registered that wing as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2018.

The hotel grew out of an older inn. Accounts of when it became a Western-style hotel differ: Premium Japan says 1886, and Japanese Wikipedia says 1894. Both agree it moved to its present site and took the Mampei name in 1902.

The piano and the milk tea

Karuizawa has no statue or plaque to Lennon, so what is left of him is inside the Mampei. One thing is a piano he played during his stays. It stands in the hotel's small history room at the back of the lobby. The same room holds chairs used when Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka met Henry Kissinger in 1972.

The other is on the menu. Lennon asked the cafe terrace for a milk tea that it did not serve, then showed the staff how he wanted it made. The hotel kept the recipe and still sells it as royal milk tea linked to him. Japanese Wikipedia notes the version served today comes with whipped cream.

Around town

Lennon's summers left marks elsewhere in Karuizawa too. The family went to the French Bakery on Kyu-Karuizawa Ginza, where he bought bread, and to the lookout at Usui Pass and Shiraito Falls. None of these has a memorial either.

After the renovation

The Mampei closed on 4 January 2023 for its first large renovation. The Alps wing was stripped back to its structure and made earthquake resistant. The hotel reopened on 16 August 2024 and held a grand opening on 2 October 2024. It used to close for winter but now opens all year.

The Beatles' only Japanese concerts, in 1966, were at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. Japan's museum devoted to Lennon, in Saitama, closed in 2010.