Kunenan

Kunenan is the former villa and garden of the Itami family, Saga business people of the Meiji era, in Kanzaki, Saga Prefecture. The garden has been a national Place of Scenic Beauty since 1995. It is owned by Saga Prefecture and opens to the public only for short periods in spring and autumn.

The land once belonged to Niiyama Gokoku-ji (仁比山護国寺), a temple said to have been founded in 729 by the monk Gyoki on the emperor's order. The temple was closed in the early Meiji period, when Shinto and Buddhism were separated by law.

The Saga businessman Itami Bunemon bought the land and built a villa there in 1892 to retire to. After his death, his son Itami Yataro spent nine years, from 1900, making the garden. It was designed by a Buddhist priest from Kurume who had trained in Kyoto, in the natural style of tea gardens. A teahouse followed in 1920, with a name board reading Kunenan written by the painter Tomioka Tessai. In the Taisho era the family received Okuma Shigenobu here, a statesman born in Saga who twice served as prime minister of Japan.

The Kurume businessman Kurata Taizo bought the property in 1960 and had it restored under the garden historian Mori Osamu. Saga Prefecture acquired it in 1983, began the autumn public openings in 1988, and the garden was named a Place of Scenic Beauty in 1995.

The garden

Maples stand over a ground of green moss, with the thatched roof of the villa among them. In autumn the red leaves against the moss and thatch are what the garden is best known for. Stone steps and stepping stones run through the grounds, and stairs lead up to the higher part of the hillside.

Niiyama Shrine, said to date back 1,300 years, stands next to the garden. Nearby are the temple Niiyama Jizoin, the former home of the Dutch-learning doctor Ito Genboku, a historic site of Saga Prefecture, and the shrine's Nio-mon gate with its Kongo Rikishi guardian statues.