Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens (Japanese Garden)

Japanese Garden
In collaboration with Japanese landscape architect T.R. Otsuka, Warren Manning designed the Japanese Garden in 1916. Its pervasive mood is tranquility, or “yugen.”

Early photographs of the garden reveal that the original design consisted of gently curving earth crisscrossed by waterways and decorated with small evergreens, ornamental maples, shrubs, and ground covers. Additional features included a waterfall behind which a fabricated, cement conglomerate representation of Mt. Fuji loomed. The Japanese Garden was restored to this original design in 2010, and included restoration of the two 100,000 gallon cisterns below the Japanese Gardens. These cisterns, originally the water source for the entire Estate, are now used to irrigate the historic gardens.