Day 206: Eugene J. de Sabla, Jr., Teahouse and Tea Garden, San Mateo, California
📌APIA Every Day (206) - Originally part of the El Cerrito estate, the property passed through the hands of several renowned Californians before being purchased by Eugene J. de Sabla Jr., co-founder of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, in 1906. Around 1907, de Sabla commissioned Makoto Hagiwara, the renowned designer of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Japanese Tea Garden, to create an elaborate Japanese-style garden on the property. This timing coincided with a growing trend among wealthy Californians to embrace Japanese aesthetics in landscape design, moving away from Victorian-style gardens.
Hagiwara's design for the de Sabla garden showcases key elements of traditional Japanese landscape architecture. The nearly one-acre space incorporates features of both Higurashi-en ("a garden worthy of a day of contemplation") and Shin-style hill gardens. These include a man-made mountain partially constructed with volcanic Japanese rock, a stream flowing into a waterfall and koi-filled lake, stone lanterns, a Buddha statue, a tsukubai (water basin), and a bamboo fence with a roofed entrance. The Ryoku-style teahouse, completed around 1909, evokes a rustic farmhouse with shoji screen doors, plaster walls with wood beams, and traditional interior elements.
The garden's preservation offers a rare, intact example of Hagiwara's private commissions and provides insight into the adaptation of Japanese garden principles to California landscapes. It reflects the cultural exchange between Japan and the United States in the early 20th century when Japanese aesthetics were increasingly influencing American design. The garden's historical and cultural significance was officially recognized in 1992 when it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. As one of the few surviving examples of Hagiwara's work outside of public spaces, the de Sabla garden serves as an important resource for understanding the integration of Japanese garden design in American private estates of the period.
LEARN MORE:
National Park Service: Eugene J. de Sabla, Jr., Teahouse and Tea Garden NRHP Form
National Park Service: Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Punch Magazine: Landmark: De Sabla Japanese Teahouse and Garden
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