The UCLA Hannah Carter Japanese Garden covers just over one acre and is located in the community of Bel Air about one mile from campus.

The garden was inspired by the gardens of Kyoto. Many structures in the garden - the main gate, garden house, bridges, and shrine - were built in Japan and reassembled here. Antique stone carvings, water basins and lanterns, as well as the five-tiered pagoda, and key symbolic rocks are also from Japan. Several hundred tons of local stones came from the quarries in Ventura County and the foot of Mt. Baldy, northeast of Los Angeles.

Brief History

• Nagao Sakurai, landscape architect, and garden designer Kazuo Nakamura of Kyoto, were commissioned to design the garden in 1959 on the Bel Air estate of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Guiberson. Construction was completed in 1961.
• Chair of The Regents of the University of California Edward W. Carter and his wife Hannah purchased the estate in 1965 and donated the garden to the University of California that same year.
• In 1969, heavy rains damaged the garden. UCLA Professor Koichi Kawana designed the reconstruction.
• In 1982, the garden was officially renamed the UCLA Hannah Carter Japanese Garden.