VISIT KANAZAWA, JAPAN - Official Travel Guide

Tsujike Garden (formerly Yokoyama Family Garden) was created from the late Meiji period to the early Taishō period as the garden of a villa and reception hall. It was commissioned by Takaoki Yokoyama, a member of the family of senior retainers of the Kaga Domain, with his elder brother, Baron Ryuhei Yokoyama, serving as its sponsor. At the time, the Yokoyama family amassed an enormous fortune through copper production at the Ogoya Copper Mine, giving rise to the saying, “Kanazawa is sustained by the Yokoyamas.”

Tsujike Garden constitutes the garden section of a reception facility built during the family’s golden age at the enormous cost of ¥200,000 at the time—equivalent to approximately ¥4 billion today. Like Chinzan-so, regarded as a masterpiece of modern Japanese gardens, and the Furukawa Gardens, designated as a Tokyo cultural property, it is said to have been designed by the Kyoto garden designer Ogawa Jihei VII, popularly known as “Ueji.”

In 1984 (Shōwa 59), Tsujike Garden was designated by the city as a protected tree preserve, and in 2004 (Heisei 16), it was designated as a cultural property of Kanazawa City. Until then, it had rarely been open to the general public; however, plans for its new utilization were initiated in December 2013, and it was opened to the public for the first time.