A bathhouse over a boulder
Hakurokuto is the one building in the garden that was never a tea room. It is a bathhouse, built a step below the waiting pavilion on the lowest ground in the circuit, reached from the yoritsuki by a steep stair. It belongs to the early Taisho garden, around 1916, that Masuda Don’o made in the boulders of Gora, and it long served as a rock bath for the mountain villa.
It is the smallest of the five, about 13 square metres under a shingled (kokera-buki) roof. Rather than clear the site, the builders used a large natural boulder as part of the structure and set a roof over it, so the rock itself becomes floor and wall of the bath.
Built of logs
The Agency for Cultural Affairs registered Hakurokuto on 20 November 2001. Its construction is deliberately raw. Thick logs are assembled into the frame, and the outer walls and the roof base are packed with logs set closely side by side, a technique used across the whole small building.
The result is plain and countrified, in keeping with a bath for a mountain villa rather than a townhouse. Where the tea rooms use rustic timber for effect, here the rough log construction is doing structural work on a difficult, sloping, rock-strewn site, which gives the little building an honesty of its own.
What to look for on a visit
Look at how the building meets its boulder. The join between cut timber and natural rock is the whole idea: the architecture yields to the stone rather than removing it. It is a small lesson in how this garden was made, working with the boulders of Gora rather than against them.
Hakurokuto sits at the bottom of the garden circuit inside Hakone Gora Park, below the yoritsuki. Seen with the tea rooms above, it rounds out the picture of a complete mountain retreat, one that provided not only tea but the plain comforts of bathing among the rocks.
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Q&A
- Is Hakurokuto a tea room?
- No. It is the garden’s bathhouse, a rock bath for the former mountain villa, and the only one of the five buildings that was not built for tea.
- What is special about its construction?
- It is built over a large natural boulder, with thick logs framing it and logs packed side by side in the walls and roof base, an unusually raw, rustic method.
- How do you reach it?
- A steep stair descends to it from the yoritsuki, since it sits on the lowest ground in the garden circuit.
- How is the name read?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives the reading Hakurokuto for these characters.
Basic Information
| Name | Hakuundo Chaen Hakurokuto (白雲洞茶苑白鹿湯) |
|---|---|
| Location | 1300-69 Gora, Hakone-machi, Ashigarashimo-gun, Kanagawa (inside Hakone Gora Park) |
| Status | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (building); register no. 14-0064 |
| Registered | 20 November 2001 (gazetted 4 December 2001) |
| Date | About 1916 (Taisho 5) |
| Structure | One-storey timber, shingled (kokera-buki) roof; floor area about 13 sq m |
| Owner | Odakyu Hakone Co., Ltd. |
| Access | About 5 min on foot from Gora Station, within Hakone Gora Park |
References
- 国指定文化財等データベース（文化庁） — 白雲洞茶苑白鹿湯
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00002532
- 箱根強羅公園 — 白雲洞茶苑
- https://www.hakonenavi.jp/gorapark/map/tea/
- 箱根強羅公園 — 登録有形文化財でお抽茶を
- https://www.hakonenavi.jp/gorapark/info/3698/
Last verified: 2026.07.09