Hakone in Saratoga: Buildings Designed to Experience a Hillside Garden
By Matthew Martinez, Founder, CEO & Managing Broker, Diamond Real Estate Group. California DRE #01869679.
Hakone’s architecture is closely tied to the experience of its gardens. The buildings are places from which to look, pause and gather, while their position on the hillside establishes a sequence of different relationships with the surrounding landscape.
The estate also contains buildings from different periods. Understanding those distinctions makes the garden more informative than treating every structure as part of one original installation.
The estate began as a family retreat
The National Park Service’s history connects Hakone with Oliver and Isabel Stine and their purchase of the Saratoga property in 1915. It identifies architect Tsunematsu Shintani and landscape designer Naoharu Aihara with the early buildings and gardens.
The site’s hillside position and views over the Santa Clara Valley were part of the setting. The retreat was designed through a relationship between buildings and land, rather than as an independent house surrounded by later decoration.
Hakone’s own history also connects Isabel Stine’s interest with Japanese exhibits at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and her subsequent travel to Japan.
The Upper House makes the veranda central
The estate’s building interpretation dates the Upper, or Moonviewing, House to 1918. It describes an engawa, or veranda, overlooking the gardens, together with tatami flooring and a tokonoma for a scroll and flower arrangement.
The veranda occupies an important middle position. It belongs to the building while directing attention outward, allowing the experience of a room to extend toward the garden without becoming identical to standing on an open path.
The arrangement gives the act of looking an architectural place. A view is framed through where someone can sit or stand, the level of the floor and the edge between enclosure and landscape.
The Lower House offers another building tradition
The same interpretation dates the Lower House to 1922 and identifies post-and-beam construction with sliding doors and windows.
Those elements establish a different relationship between structural frame and enclosure from a wall understood primarily as a continuous solid surface. The frame organizes the building, while openings and movable panels shape how spaces connect.
At Hakone, understanding the building’s parts adds depth to the garden visit. Architecture is participating in the sequence rather than simply providing a picturesque backdrop.
The Cultural Exchange Center belongs to a later chapter
Hakone describes its Cultural Exchange Center as a Kyoto tea merchant’s house-and-shop design, constructed in Japan, disassembled and reassembled in Saratoga. Its account identifies modifications by Kiyoshi Yasui with assistance from Saratoga architect Warren Heid.
The building was adapted to accommodate public use and larger gatherings. Its history therefore includes both Japanese construction and changes made for its California setting and program.
This is a different story from an untouched early residence. Keeping the chapters distinct allows the estate’s continuing cultural and architectural work to be understood accurately.
The garden is a sequence of places, not one static view
The town’s 2016 master plan distinguishes buildings, structures and garden areas within the historic property. Its inventory includes the Hill and Pond Garden, Tea Garden, Moon Bridge and several pavilions.
These elements support different ways of experiencing the terrain: crossing, climbing, pausing, entering and looking outward. The richness comes from their connections as much as from any single feature.
Separating those functions helps explain why a modest pavilion, bridge or threshold can have an effect beyond its physical size within the overall design.
Explore real estate and home for sale in Saratoga and our property-setting comparison. Contact Diamond to compare homes through the way architecture and outdoor space work together.
Sources checked October 28, 2026. The 2016 plan is an archival planning reference. Confirm present access and accessible routes with Hakone; portions occupy steep terrain.
