[conspire] Big estates

[Rick Moen]

Quoting carl77 at juno.com (carl77 at juno.com):

> Not entirely sure that this qualifies (having been extensively
> reworked, but still interesting),but in Monte Sereno, there is a house
> with Japanese garden called Kotani-en. It is presently privately
> owned, but the owner opens it up occasionally for benefits and special
> events (he's a retired software guy, and a lot of fun). My
> understanding is that it was originally the summer home of the VP of
> the Bank of Italy (now B of A). After he passed away, the family
> didn't care about or for it, and it went to seed for many years. The
> present owner saw it and concluded that restoring/ reviving it was
> what he wanted to do, so he bought it and has been doing that since
> (he says it got hit hard during the Loma Prieta quake), using as close
> to original materials and craft techniques when able. The garden still
> contains a 2000 pound jade boulder that was a gift from the Emperor of
> Japan. It's on the State Registry of Historic Places.

Fascinating.  Thank you; I hadn't known of that one.

  Kotani-En is a classical Japanese residence in the formal style of a
  13th-century estate with tile roofed walls surrounding a tea house,
  shrine, gardens, and ponds. Constructed for Max M. Cohen in 1918-1924 of
  mahogany, cedar, bamboo, and ceramic tile by master artisan Takashima
  and eleven craftsmen from Japan, Kotani-En represents a harmonious union
  of art and nature in a two-acre rustic environment. Kotani-En is a
  prominent example of Japanese landscape architecture in America.

https://www.parks.ca.gov/ListedResources/Detail/903

It's just uphill from CA-9 on the stretch between Los Gatos and Monte
Sereno, in the same general vicinity as Villa Montalvo and Hakone
Gardens.

On the owner's domain, https://kotanien.com/ :

  Kotani-En has new owners, Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen.  Mr. Nguyen is a bonsai
  enthusiast, and his wife an Ikebana practitioner. The owners are
  planning to restore this beautiful and serene garden, and extend it to
  include a display area of very old bonsai trees, which have been
  meticulously cultivated for years; many of these bonsai trees were
  collected in the Rocky and Sierra mountains where they had lived for
  hundreds of years.  A bonsai and Ikebana studio is also under
  construction.

  Kotani-En remains privately owned, and will be open to the public by
  appointment only in the future.  Stay tuned.

Some gorgeous photos, and a detailed history, can be seen on
https://kotanien.com/ .

Anyway, venerable sites getting extensively reconstructed is a hallowed
Japanese tradition, many of the historic buildings having been _founded_
as much as 1400 years ago but then having been continually rebuilt as
needed.  If you ever get to Tokyo, for example, the Toshogu Shrine,
where the first Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, is buried, is very
impressive and seems quite old.  I'm sure some bits of it are still from
1651 (I hope including the shogun's remains) but quite a lot of it's
from the early 2010s, the most recent of many rebuilds.