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Architects: Kichi Architectural Design
- photographs: Ippei ShinzawaPhotographs: Ippei Shinzawa
Text description provided by the architects. This inn is located on Chichi-jima, which is part of the Ogasawara archipelago located in the Pacific Ocean approximately 1000 km south of Tokyo.
Ogasawara archipelago has a subtropical climate, meaning it is warm all year round and is an ocean island which has never once been joined with a continent.
As such, there are many species of flora and fauna unique to Ogasawara that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. In 2011, Ogasawara was listed as a World Heritage Site.
Humans first inhabited Ogasawara in 1830, when 5 Caucasians, including Nathaniel Savory, and 25 Hawaiians from Oahu Island established a colony.
The current day owner of the inn is the great-great-grandson of Nathaniel Savory. The hotel’s location is historically significant as the place where Nathaniel Savory built the first man-made dwelling ever to be built on the Ogasawara Islands.
This innkeeper runs his hotel with the strong hope his guests will experience the nature, cuisine, history and culture of Ogasawara in this historic place passed down through the generations of his family.
The façade is a simple, neat design which acts as a canvass to the main attraction of the surrounding nature. Like the façade, the inn’s interior also adopts a simple design, using a basic tone of white and combining the natural colors of the mortar and base materials in order to reflect the laidback feel of the archipelago.
The inn comprises of 2 buildings, with a total of 13 rooms including single rooms, twin rooms and Japanese-style rooms. There is a restaurant where guests can enjoy Ogasawara cuisine, a library conveying the history of the archipelago and the long hallway running in front of the guestrooms serves as a gallery.
With the innkeeper, his family and other staff living in an adjacent building, Pat Inn offers guests that at-home experience possible due to being family-owned and operated.
