Moroto garden, Historical garden estate in Kuwana, Japan

Moroto garden is the former Kiyoroku Moroto residence in Kuwana, a 26,450 m² estate with a pond garden designed by Kunihisa Kodaira to evoke Lake Biwa. Its buildings include a main house of around 1889, a palace completed in 1891, a Western-style annex, and a gate in the yakuimon style built around 1894.

A hermitage stood here in the Kamakura period, and by the Muromachi era it was the residence of the Yabe family, retainers of the Oda, with a garden called En no Okudono. In 1686 the Kuwana merchant Yamada Hikazaemon bought it as a retirement villa, and in 1884 Moroto Seiroku, then 38, acquired it and added the shop-residence, goten, Western building and tidal garden.

The garden blends Japanese rooms and Western structures that both show signs of lived-in spaces. Visitors notice how these two design traditions exist side by side throughout the grounds.

The garden opens from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last entry at 4 p.m., and only for about six weeks in spring and again in autumn. It is closed on Mondays, or the following day when Monday is a public holiday. From Kuwana Station on the JR Kansai and Kintetsu Nagoya lines it is about 15 minutes on foot, or roughly 10 minutes by car from the Kuwana interchange; the K-Bus stops at Rokukaen-nishi.

The pond garden was designed by Kogure Yoshichika, an engineer of the Imperial Household Ministry, to imitate Lake Biwa, and it holds the national designation of Place of Scenic Beauty. The garden was added after Moroto Seiroku bought the estate in 1884.