SEKIYA RESORT GALLERIA MIDOBARU
ガレリア御堂原
Does SEKIYA RESORT GALLERIA MIDOBARU allow tattoos? In a private bath
Thirty-five rooms, thirty-five stone tubs of Horita sulfur water open to the air on one side, and not a single bath anyone shares. The hotel was built as a gallery you sleep in.
All 35 rooms have a half open-air bath cut from a single block of stone, fed free-flowing with Horita’s sulfur water, and the hotel’s facility sheet lists no communal bath of any kind. That makes the tattoo question moot from arrival to checkout. The word the hotel uses is 半露天, a bath open to the air on one side rather than a garden tub. Rooms come as Twin, King and Suite, and every grade has one.
Show this at the front desk
別府八湯のひとつ、由緒正しい堀田温泉の名湯を、源泉掛け流しで。それぞれの客室で、街を一望できる半露天風呂を心ゆくまでお楽しみいただけます。
The operator’s own wording, to show at the desk if you need to.
The bath
The word the hotel uses for the tub is han-roten, open to the air on one side rather than standing out in a garden, and it faces down over the town and the bay from the plateau above the interchange. The facility sheet lists no communal bath, so there is nothing to arrange, ask about or work around from arrival to checkout.
The tubs are hollowed out of single blocks of stone, which the hotel says suits sulfur water and keeps the heat in the stone after the water has gone, and the tiles around them are Mino ware made to order, fired so the surface still reads as pressed earth. The water is Horita’s sulfur spring, the hydrogen sulfide type, running free from the source.
Every grade has one. Twin and deluxe twin rooms are 47.4 square meters with a 10.3-square-meter terrace; the two suites are 116.9 square meters laid over the third and fourth floors, with the bedrooms upstairs and a living room, a kitchen and a 29.6-square-meter terrace below. A shower room sits beside each bath.
The hotel
The hotel opened on 18 December 2020 and is meant to be walked through as much as slept in: works by Ine Izumi, Shimabuku, Mika Aoki and Hiraku Suzuki are installed along the corridors and public rooms. There is a wagyu steak restaurant, a bar built around the spring, and a body spa. Parking beside the building is free and needs no reservation, and the front desk will call a taxi at checkout.
What is good about it
- No shared bath in the building at all, the facility sheet lists none, so there is nothing to negotiate.
- Tubs cut from single blocks of stone, with made-to-order Mino tiles around them.
- The suites run over two floors, 116.9 square meters with a kitchen and a terrace of their own.
Getting there
Three minutes by car from the Beppu interchange and about fifteen from JR Beppu STN, up on the Horita plateau. From Oita airport the airport bus takes about fifty minutes to Beppu Station, then twelve more by taxi.
Beppu STN · JR Nippo line; the Sonic limited express runs in from Hakata
Not a walk: 3.7 km uphill.
Fifteen minutes by car from the station, three from the Beppu interchange. Free parking on site.
Where it is
Hakata STN
JR Sonic limited express 1 h 55
Kokura STN
Oita STN
✈Oita Airport
Beppu STN
Hotel location
What happens when you arrive
Skip the shared baths and reserve the private one the way this page describes. Once the door is closed, the bath is yours.
How we know
Confirmed from official site, bath structure rather than a tattoo policy (the hot spring page and the facility information table)
Read on: beppu-galleria-midobaru.jp/hot-spring/
Best for: A tattooed guest who wants zero shared water and contemporary art in the corridors
Opened 18 December 2020. The spring is 硫黄泉（硫化水素型）from Horita, one of the Beppu Hatto. Bathroom tiles are made-to-order Mino ware and the tubs are hollowed from solid stone, which the hotel says suits sulfur water. Works by Ine Izumi, Shimabuku, Mika Aoki and Hiraku Suzuki are installed through the building. Three minutes by car from the Beppu interchange, about fifteen from the station.
Check availabilityBooking through this button costs you nothing extra and sends a small commission our way — it’s what keeps this guide free for our tattoo community, and every policy on it checked. Thank you.