The Japanese Garden is a nationally recognized place for quiet enjoyment of natural beauty. The Dooleys added this intimate garden around the waterfall during a period when fascination with Japan was sweeping the country, employing a Japanese garden master in 1912, believed to be Y. Muto, to design it. The waterfall, created during the Dooleys' time as a dramatic backdrop, plunges 45 feet over the rock outcropping of a former granite quarry, and two stone lanterns and an artful arrangement of stones remain from the original garden. The rustic pavilion on the waterfall ledge is a reconstruction, and the winding stream was once crossed by an earthen bridge before emptying into a large pond formed from a turning basin of the Kanawha Canal. In the late 1970s, the garden was renovated and enlarged according to plans by Barry Starke of Earth Design Inc. through funding from Ikebana of Richmond, Inc. and other sources after decades of deterioration had erased much of its original splendor and detail. Preserving the core of the Dooleys' garden, the renovation added many new elements, and it now represents a Japanese stroll garden in which paths and varied design features create changing impressions of nature and a contemplative mood. Its features include handcrafted entrance gates, a dry pool with sand patterns, stones, and a large Japanese maple planted in the Dooleys' time, a hill garden with a narrow winding stream crossed by an earthen bridge, a pond with an island overlooked by an azumaya, koi swimming through the pond, stone groupings throughout the garden, and a variety of bridges that encourage a slower pace. Water for the waterfall is pumped up the hill from the Kanawha Canal, so its operation depends on the canal's water level and normally runs from early April through early November. The nearby Old Pump House, designed by Noland and Baskerville, housed a gasoline-powered pump that originally moved water from the pond to the Water Tower to supply the waterfall, fountains, and cascade. The Grotto, completed in 1912 and later incorporated when the Japanese Garden was extended into the area, is a rare American example of a landscape feature that originated in ancient Rome, intended as a cave-like place for contemplating hidden aspects of nature, with water from a spring channeled to drip down walls encrusted with cave formations and stone lions based on sculptures by Antonio Canova flanking its opening.
