Hakone Gardens

I was fortunate enough to visit Hakone Gardens long before it was open to the public. My dad, co-founder of the San Jose Surgical Society in 1949-1950, happened to be good friends with one of the owners, Joe and Clara Gresham, contractors who also built our first home.

The Gresham’s owned the old farmhouse at the bottom of the hill just below Hakone and and across the Saratoga Creek, now known as Tollgate. In my high school years, the Hakone groundskeeper was Jack Tomlinson. I think he must have been there for close to 30 years. I remember the time he was giving away free bamboo grass after a seasonal thinning.

Later, when I was President of the Saratoga Village Association and Saratoga Chamber of Commerce, the City of Saratoga made the big step in purchasing the gardens and developing a Sister City relationship with Muko Japan. We called it Muko-shi Japan back then.

These are beautiful gardens with bonsai cedar trees, bamboo, azaleas, Japanese maples, and rhododendrons. As children, we always enjoyed feeding the fish in the Koi Pond, which is no longer allowed due to their regulated diet.