Matsudaya Hotel Garden

Matsudaya Hotel Garden: A Hidden Modern Masterpiece by Kyoto's Most Celebrated Gardener

Tucked behind the unassuming gates of a 350-year-old hot spring inn in the heart of Yamaguchi City, Matsudaya Hotel Garden (松田屋ホテル庭園, Matsudaya Hoteru Teien) is one of Japan's most quietly remarkable cultural gardens. Designated a Nationally Registered Monument (Place of Scenic Beauty) in 2017, this strolling garden was created in the early Taisho era by Ogawa Jihei VII—better known as "Ueji"—the gardener who shaped the modern Japanese garden aesthetic in Kyoto's Nanzen-ji district. Remarkably, this is one of the very few Ueji gardens west of Kyoto, and it sits inside a working ryokan whose tatami rooms once hosted the very samurai who toppled the Tokugawa Shogunate. To walk this garden is to step into a living chapter of Japanese history.

From Edo Inn to Meiji Restoration Stronghold

Matsudaya Hotel began in 1675 as Matsudaya Ryokan, a hot spring inn serving travelers along the routes converging on Yudaonsen. For nearly two centuries, it operated as a quiet provincial inn—until Japan's late Edo period thrust it into history. In 1863, when the "Seven Nobles" led by Sanjo Sanetomi were forced to flee Kyoto during the Bunkyu political upheaval, several of them sought refuge in nearby lodgings in Yudaonsen, and Matsudaya became one of the gathering places of choice for the loyalists who followed.

By the late 1860s, Matsudaya had become a meeting house for the architects of the Meiji Restoration. In 1867, Saigo Takamori and Okubo Toshimichi of the Satsuma domain sat down here with Kido Takayoshi (Katsura Kogoro) and Ito Hirobumi of the Choshu domain to coordinate the overthrow of the shogunate. The pavilion where they met, "Nanshu-tei," still stands in the garden today. Sakamoto Ryoma and Takasugi Shinsaku also frequented the inn, and a small bath built in 1860—now called "Ishin-no-Yu," the Bath of the Restoration—is preserved as the very tub these revolutionaries are said to have used.

The Hand of Ueji: Why This Garden Matters

The garden you see today was created around 1918 (Taisho 7) at the invitation of Yamagata Aritomo, the former Choshu samurai who became Japan's ninth Prime Minister. Yamagata was a serious garden enthusiast and the patron of Murin-an, the famous villa garden in Kyoto's Nanzen-ji area. There he had collaborated for years with Ogawa Jihei VII, the head of a Kyoto family of professional gardeners who took the working name "Ueji." When Yamagata sponsored an extension to Matsudaya, he summoned Ueji and his team to remake what had been a modest Edo-period dry-landscape (karesansui) garden into something entirely new.

Ueji is the figure most often credited with reinventing the Japanese garden for the modern age. He brought naturalistic flowing water, sweeping lawns, and a soft, painterly use of stones into what had been a more static tradition, and his style would shape garden design for generations. Most of his masterpieces—Murin-an, Heian Jingu Shrine's Shin'en, the gardens of the Nanzen-ji villas—lie in or near Kyoto. Matsudaya Hotel Garden is widely regarded as the only garden in western Japan known to have been designed by Ueji's own hand, which is why it holds an outsized place in the history of modern Japanese landscape art.

Walking the Garden: Highlights to Look For

The garden unfolds to the east of three connected wooden buildings, all built between the late Meiji and Taisho eras and arranged exactly as they were a century ago: from north to south, the Hagi-no-Ma wing, the Kaikatsuro (named personally by Prime Minister Yamagata Aritomo), and the Gunrankaku (named by Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi, who also brushed the calligraphy hanging in the lobby). Sliding open the shoji is an experience in itself—the rooms feel almost continuous with the garden beyond.

Visiting the Garden

Matsudaya Hotel is a working ryokan, and the garden is part of the guest experience. The deepest way to enjoy it is to stay overnight—particularly in a room in the historic main building, where the garden lies just beyond the engawa veranda. Many rooms allow guests to feed the koi from their own porch. Dinner is served kaiseki-style, with seasonal Choshu specialties prepared by an executive chef recognized as a "Contemporary Master Craftsman" (Gendai no Meiko) by the Japanese government.

For travelers who cannot stay the night, the hotel sometimes welcomes garden-only visitors during off-hours between guest check-out and check-in, but this is a courtesy and never guaranteed. Calling the hotel in advance to confirm is essential, and visitors are asked to be discreet so as not to disturb staying guests.

The Surrounding Yudaonsen District

Matsudaya sits in the heart of Yudaonsen, a hot spring district with roughly 600 years of history and a charming local legend: the waters were said to have been discovered when a white fox was seen bathing nightly in the spring, and white-fox motifs appear throughout the town. Within an easy walk of the hotel are several attractions worth pairing with your visit.