Mountain Views News          Saturday, June 11, 2011

17

HOMES AND PROPERTY

Mountain Views-News Saturday, June 11, 2011 

One Of A Kind: Featuring unique homes and gardens and the people whoe create them. Story By Chris Bertrand Photos clly, ourtesy of Terra Bella


Big Changes Underway at Huntington’s Most Popular Attraction: The Japanese Garden


In early April, the Huntington 
Library, Art Collections, 
and Botanical 
Gardens erected temporary 
fencing around the 
Japanese Garden in order 
to begin a one year facelift 
of the nine acre site, 
in anticipation of the garden’s 
centennial in 2012. 
Until then, visitors will be 
enticed (or tormented) by 
peeks of views strategically cut through the construction 
fencing at key vantage points on the garden’s 
perimeter walkways. 

Nearly a century of enchanted visitors descended 
from above, through walkways of purple wistaria 
and a gradual unfolding of the garden’s signature 
water and arched bridge views below into 
one of the country’s oldest and most elaborate 
Japanese gardens. Now that same walkway’s vine 
faux bois, “false wood” trellises made of metal 
mesh and concrete, are also part of the revamping, 
under the careful eye of local Sierra Madre artisan, 
Terence Eagan. 

When today’s mid-construction views unfold, 
no matter how well one is prepared, it is still a 
disorienting shock to see gaping exposed earth 
instead of a new iteration of the magical and joyful 
memories of the interplay of reflection and 
landscape. 

Huntington’s Communications Coordinator, 
Lisa Blackburn, was my tour guide amid the construction 
zone. Her reassuring calm and twenty-
five years of experience with this and many other 
projects at the Huntington quell my disquiet as 
the earth seems to spin just a bit differently when 
viewing the garden’s historic bridge that currently 
resides in “dry dock” amid the lacy crisscross of 
orange construction safety fencing interspersed 
with a plethora of orange hardhats resembling 
little orange ladybugs lighting on a plant in need 
of entomological aid.

 The $6.7 million project, underwritten by the 
late Mary B. Taylor Hunt, the estates of Deane 
Weinberg and Michael Monroe and grants from 
The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation and The Rose 
Hills Foundation, will include a complete historical 
renovation of Mr. Huntington’s Japanese house 
purchase from 1912, plus many un-glamorous but 
necessary components such as new drainage and 
concrete structures replacing century old pond 
and water courses that have been jury rigged over 
the decades, reconfiguration of walkways and accessibility 
and views.

A highly anticipated addition is Seifu-an, translated 
as the Arbor of Pure Breeze, an authentic 
ceremonial teahouse donated last year by the Pasadena 
Buddhist Temple. The 47 year old structure 
was disassembled, then shipped to Kyoto for restoration 
by Nakamura’s team of thirty carpenter 
and six architects. In the process, it was discovered 
that his own father had created the structure half 
a century before. 

Fortunately, the restoration and its return voyage 
were unaffected by the massive earthquake 
damage in Japan earlier this year. The teahouse 
(still in parts), Nakamura and four craftsmen 
from his team, are all back stateside to oversee the 
reassembly process on a half acre site on a ridge 
southwest of the Japanese house. When complete, 
the tea house will host the Japanese tea ceremonies 
whose rituals date back to the 12th century. 

Jim Folsom, the Telleen/Jorgensen Director of 
the Botanical Gardens, gathered an international 
team of specialists for the delicate and precise 
project, Takuhiro Yamada, a landscape architect, 
and Yoshiaki Nakamura, a renowned architect 
and craftsman, both of Kyoto, Japan. Retired Cal 
Poly Pomona professor, Takeo Uesugi, himself the 
designer of many Japanese gardens in the United 
States, is overseeing the design plans for the project. 
Quoted in a 2010 Huntington article about the 
teahouse donation, Uesugi said of the pair, “The 
Huntington is very lucky to have the best architect 
and landscape architect in Kyoto.”

A part of Henry Huntington’s original personal 
estate, the inception of the Japanese garden is an interesting 
one, according to Blackburn. In the early 
1900’s, amid an era enamored with all things “Oriental”, 
it became known to Mr. Huntington that a 
commercial Japanese tea garden, in Pasadena at 
Fair Oaks and California, was going out of business. 

Mr. Huntington arranged to purchase the establishment’s 
Japanese house, plants and garden 
ornaments, kit and caboodle; and then had it reassembled 
on the grounds of his estate as the anchor 
to the construction of his very own Japanese 
garden. 

Folsom maintains a blog on the Huntington 
site about the project’s updates and “archeological” 
findings as the Valley Crest crews slowly peel 
away at the layers of concrete underpinnings of 
the water features of some areas that give way to a 
mysterious second thin layer sandwiched between 
soil in the upper ponds.

Says Folsom in his blog,“We have no records 
that explain the challenges or the decision-making 
process. What we do know is that our predecessors 
had a firm commitment to concrete. If a 
little will do the job, a lot more will do it better.” 
Such mundane topics as the roof replacement at 
Mr. Huntington’s beloved Japanese House have 
engendered lively discussion and debate according 
to Folsom, “Who would have known that a 
beautiful roof is not just art, craft and sweat equity? 
To replace the Japanese house roof requires 
a pretty decent amount of science, mathematics, 
and engineering. It is no simple feat to make all of 
the lines and shapes work out.”

“The Japanese Garden at The Huntington has 
long been one of my favorite places to take visitors 
on my docent-led tours. The current restoration 
project, including the addition of an authentic 
formal teahouse, will make it even more special. 
I look forward to sharing with visitors what will 
be a world-class Japanese Garden when the project 
is completed,” says San Marino City Council 
Member, former Mayor and current Huntington 
docent, Dennis Kneier.

There’s something to be said for closing the 
curtain, of temporarily, on a well-loved favorite. 
When the curtain rises once again on the Huntington’s 
Japanese Garden, the cheering will be 
heard all the louder.

For more information about the Huntington, 
or to follow the progress of the Japanese Garden’s 
updates, visit their website, www.Huntington.org. 
The Huntington is located at 1151 Oxford Road, 
San Marino, CA 91108. Yearly memberships for 
two begin at $120, with a $30 discount for seniors 
over 65, and a 10% discount and two extra months 
of membership if you join for two years. Summer 
hours just began: Wednesday through Monday 
from 10:30-4:30. Adult admission is $15 during the 
week and $20 on weekends. For more information, 
call 626-405-2100.


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Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com