Japanese Tea Garden

One of the more popular attractions of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the Japanese Tea Garden started out as one of the features of the World’s Fair.  Notable for being the oldest public Japanese Garden in the United States, it was first developed as the Japanese Village at the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition, or World’s Fair, which was held in the area now occupied by the Music Concourse.  The Japanese Tea Garden is a type of Japanese Garden known as a wet walking garden, although it has a Zen Garden or a dry garden as well. This complex of many paths, ponds and a teahouse features numerous native Japanese and Chinese plants. Its five-acre complex also includes sculptures and bridges.

It has been said that Makoto Hagiwara, a wealthy Japanese landscape designer and eventual caretaker of the garden from 1895 to 1942, approached John McLaren, responsible with much of the overall design and development of the Golden Gate Park, with a proposal to convert the Japanese exhibit into a permanent feature of the park.  Designed in a style that would blend well to its surroundings, the original garden included a large public area and a small private living area for the Hagiwara family situated in one acre of land.  Makoto Hagiwara toiled with the design, construction, and development of the garden, its pavilion, and the teahouse.  The developed garden reached a total of five acres.  Aside from the landscaping of the garden and construction of several structures, Hagiwara brought to the park many plants, bronzes, goldfish, rare Japanese birds, statues, a Shinto Shrine, a porcelain lantern, and a wooden Buddha.

In spite of their dedication towards the improvement and maintenance of the garden, the Hagiwara family was forcibly evicted in 1942 as a result of the 2nd World War. They were detained in concentration camps along with other Americans of Japanese lineage.  The garden was renamed the Oriental Tea Garden and began to lost much of its beauty.  Structures were demolished or relocated, the sculptures were lost, and most of the plants wilted and died.

Ten years after the Hagiwara family’s eviction, the name Japanese Tea Garden was reinstated.  A year later a 9,000 pound Lantern of Peace was bought by the children of Japan and brought to the garden on their behalf as a symbol of peace towards the future generations.  While the garden has yet to retain much of its lost features and glory, much could still be seen and appreciated today.

A Zen Garden designed by Nagao Sakurai in 1953 features a stone waterfall and a small island surrounded by a gravel river.  It represents the modern version of a Japanese dry garden.  The Buddhist pagoda or "treasure tower" has been moved approximately sixty feet to replace Hagiwara's Shinto Shrine. A large bronze Buddha, cast at Tajima, Japan in 1790, was presented to the garden by the S. & G. Gump Company in 1949.  The reconstructed and remodeled teahouse still features the fortune cookies that were originally introduced in the US by the Hagiwara family along with the fine oriental teas.

Other significant additions made to the Japanese Tea Garden in recent years include 12 stone lanterns; the Hagiwara-Fraser collection of lanterns, dwarf trees, and stones; a beautifully carved water basin in the shape of a boat; the remodeled Maple Lane landscape; a clipped hedge in the shape of Mount Fuji; completely renovated gates; a long bridge similar to the Hagiwara-era garden; 2 Meiji-era large bronze lanterns; and a brick terrace and a sunken garden situated on the site of Makoto Hagiwara’s old home.

Japanese Tea Garden Information

Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA 94118

Hours: 8:30am-6pm daily. Admission: Adults: $3.50; children 6-12 $1.25; seniors 65 and over $1.25. General Information: 415.752.4227.