Kyū-Iwasaki-tei Gardens

Kyu-Iwasaki-tei Gardens is the 1896 mansion of Mitsubishi's founding family near Ueno, a Josiah Conder–designed Western house joined to a Japanese hall.

It was built as the main residence of Iwasaki Hisaya, Mitsubishi's third president. Three of the original 20 buildings survive, all Important Cultural Properties. Conder's two-story wooden house is full of Jacobean carving, with colonnaded verandas, English Minton floor tiles and rare kinkarakawa-shi, embossed gilt-leather wallpaper. It joins a shoin-style Japanese hall with sliding-door paintings said to be based on sketches by the Meiji painter Hashimoto Gaho, and an underground passage leads to a Swiss-chalet billiard room. Outside is a broad lawn garden.

You remove your shoes inside, and the gardens ask visitors to wear socks. One reviewer said indoor photos weren't allowed on weekends and holidays, and another found the rooms bare and the panels mostly in Japanese, so the volunteer-led tours at 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM (about 45 minutes) help. A tea room in the Japanese hall serves matcha with seasonal sweets.

Open 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM (last entry 4:30 PM), closed December 29 to January 1. Admission is ¥400 (¥200 for 65 and over; free for elementary-age children and younger). It's 3 minutes from Exit 1 of Yushima Station (Chiyoda Line) and about 10 minutes from Ueno-hirokoji and Ueno-okachimachi.