GORA KADAN stands on land that belonged to the Kan'in-no-miya, one of Japan's imperial families. The villa they built here in the early Showa years is still standing, and it is where dinner is served. The ryokan is a Relais & Châteaux house and carries its inheritance without making a fuss about it. Pale wood corridors, traditional materials cut on modern lines, and a garden that was a private imperial garden a century ago. Three springs feed the baths, two of them rising inside the garden itself, and the water is gently alkaline. Many rooms have their own open-air bath. There is a large public bath that changes over at night, and a private open-air bath you can reserve, filled straight from the source, with a steam sauna beside it. There is also an indoor pool built like an orangerie, a warm-stone sauna and a spa. Dinner is kaiseki in the old villa, and the menu turns over with the month. Sushi Kadan, the counter, is there if you would rather eat that way. Gora is high on the Hakone slope, inside the national park, under two hours from Tokyo by car. The switchback railway, the cable car and the art museums are a short way down the hill.