Despite the criticism, Korea's hanok stay boom might save its traditional homes.

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Despite the criticism, Korea's hanok stay boom might save its traditional homes.

Published: 03 Apr. 2025, 07:00 Updated: 03 Apr. 2025, 08:10

LEE JIAN
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

A new hanok stay called Blue Dot Stay, operated by Proudlee and repaired by Bukchon Giwa in Jongno District, central Seoul [PROUDLEE]

In a quiet cul-de-sac in Bukchon, an old neighborhood in Jongno District, central Seoul, a discreet wooden doorway leads to a charming L-shaped wooden house. Grey clay tiles adorn its roof like scales, and together, they curve and stretch like a giant ray swimming among a sea of high-rise buildings. On the ground level, the antique pinewood columns hint at a near-century's worth of history. A small, square courtyard in the middle of the compound is filled with soft pebbles.

Called hanok, it is a traditional Korean-style house usually made completely of wood and clay.

An aerial view of a hanok in Jongno District, central Seoul [PARK SANG MOON]

But inside this hanok in Bukchon, there are hardwood floors, a queen-size bed and a fully equipped kitchen. The bathroom has a TOTO toilet. In a separate building — but still within the compound — is a sauna with clay walls. There is also a spa and a bathtub.

Operating as a stay, the rooms are serviced daily by local cleaners, and there is a concierge on call around the clock.

Interior of the Blue Dot Stay [PROUDLEE]

The bathtub at the Blue Dot Stay [PROUDLEE]

The scene is a dramatic change from just a few months ago when the hanok was left derelict for years, its wooden framework rotting and rooms filled with trash.

Inside the Blue Dot Stay, before being turned into a hanok stay [PROUDLEE]

Premium hanok stays have proliferated across the country over the past five years, becoming the crème de la crème of local tourist offerings that sometimes struggle to provide uniquely Korean experiences for travelers, particularly in the city.

In recent years, there has been a backlash among some who believe that hanok stays are commercializing Korean cultural heritage and causing overtourism. But the other side of the coin argues that hanok stays are a solution toward sustaining historical architecture.

Tourists visit the Bukchon Hanok Village in Jongno District, central Seoul, before the newly implemented curfew in the area, to control overtourism on March 2. [YONHAP]

According to Lee Dong-woo, CEO of Proudlee operating and managing hanok stays, there are still dozens of abandoned hanok, even in Jongno District itself.

“Without hanok stays, there wouldn’t be very many hanok left,” he said.

Lee started his business in 2021 and currently operates around a dozen hanok stays in Bukchon and the adjacent neighborhood Seochon, in addition to a hanok stay reservation platform called Butler.lee.

“Their owners don’t want to live there, and no one wants to buy them,” he said. “Realistically, oftentimes, hanok are a nuisance to their owners.”

Bukchon Giwa CEO Jang Se-jin, left, and Proudlee CEO Lee Dong-woo pose together at a hanok stay in Jongno District, central Seoul, on March 18. [PARK SANG-MOON]

The number of hanok stays began to exponentially increase around 2020, when the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism altered regulations in favor of hanok stay businesses and started to offer funding as high as 180 million won to those looking to repair hanok in designated areas.

A total of 2,754 hanok stays were registered in Korea in 2024, 60 percent more than the 1,724 stays noted in 2019.

A bulk of them are in the capital. As of March 2025, there are 321 hanok in Seoul, nearly 79 percent of which are in Jongno District, where hanok clusters dot the neighborhoods.

Their rise in the city has particularly become a contentious matter, as residents started to complain about noise and poor tourist behavior, like littering and illegal parking.

The Bukchon Hanok Village, a hanok cluster in Jongno District most notably affected by overtourism, became the first neighborhood in Korea to implement a tourist curfew, which officially took effect on March 1.

Last year, Jongno District even said it would review restrictions on hanok stays, though those plans are currently on hold.

Proudlee's Lee, however, argues that these hanok clusters were dying before hanok stays gave them “a reason to continue existing.”

Previously referred to as a "ghost town," hanok weren’t valued like they are today because they had “no use,” Lee said.

“Their location, construction costs and maintenance expenses make them impractical and inconvenient for fulfilling their primary purpose.”

His clients today are mostly modern-day Koreans who’ve inherited hanok from their parents but would rather live in an apartment.

“People want efficient heating and cooling systems and prices, parking spaces and close proximity to public transportation,” added Lee.

These properties don't sell easily, either. Gentrification in central Seoul has led to sky-high real estate prices, and building regulations in many hanok clusters prohibit the construction of any tall structures. Buyers willing to purchase properties at these prices and conditions are scant.

“For hanok to be sustainable, it needs to be a competitive product. Today, hanok owners need a reason to spend hundreds of millions of won to fix them. The rise of hanok stays has given them a reason,” he said.

It takes around 150 million won ($102,000) to 300 million won to repair an existing hanok.

Inside the Blue Dot Stay, operated by Proudlee and repaired by Bukchon Giwa in Jongno District, central Seoul [PROUDLEE]

Jang Se-jin, CEO of the hanok repair company Bukchon Giwa, stated that hanok stays have helped raise national appreciation for the architecture. Since people have been hiring him to repair hanok for stays rather than for private residences, the repair standards have improved, he said.

“Ten years ago, people were asking us to fix their hanoks at minimal cost, and we’d basically do quick repairs, close to damage control. But since the hanok stay boom, owners want us to restore hanok, by the book, in the more traditional method — because for a hanok stay to be approved by the government for business, the building needs to correspond to a strict set of standards, including roof shape, materials and color, the depth of the eaves and wooden frames.”

Jang was raised in Bukchon Hanok Village and is now the CEO of Bukchon Giwa, a position passed down from his father, who worked for over 50 years in the business.

“I have witnessed the changes in the neighborhood atmosphere over time, but since about a year after Covid-19, the popularity of hanok has skyrocketed.

“Premium hanok stays have really been a game changer. I hope this trend is here to stay.”

Tourists roam around the alleyways of the Bukchon Hanok Village, a hanok cluster in Jongno District, central Seoul, in November 2023. [JOONGANG ILBO]

Proudlee’s Lee said that despite what is being reported about the villagers, he enjoys working with them and described their relationship as symbiotic.

“We have hanok owners lining up to turn their hanok into stays,” he said, which is quite unlike when he was first starting the business, chasing hanok owners and convincing them to turn their empty buildings into stays.

In hiring cleaners, it prioritizes locals, often retirees, as part-time workers to clean the rooms or run simple errands for guests.

“It has more often been the case that they want to work with us than against us,” Lee said.

For him personally, it gives him satisfaction when he sees the alleyways of Jongno regain their past beauty and vibrancy.

“Part of the singular charm of hanok these days is that they are in cities, amid modern architecture. It is a window, quite literally, and a whole body experience into Korea’s past and the present.”

Jang said that premium hanok stays have upended his understanding of hanok.

“Before I saw places like Proudlee turning these hanok into fancy rooms, I, as well as hanok owners who were my clients, only thought of them as bygone houses that cost a lot of money.

Even though I have lived in and spent my entire life dealing with hanok, premium hanok stays have completely changed my understanding of what hanok could be."

BY LEE JIAN [[email protected]]