Motomachi Park

Motomachi Park occupies a wooded slope on the western flank of the Yamate Bluff, forming a peaceful green buffer between the fashionable Motomachi shopping street below and the residential heights above. Compact and terraced into the hillside, it is one of a chain of small parks and preserved foreign residences that trace Yokohama's history as a treaty port, and it makes a restful counterpoint to the busy retail and dining streets that surround it.

The park is best known as the setting for two historic Western-style houses. The Ehrismann Residence, built in 1926 for a Swiss silk trader and designed by Antonin Raymond — the Czech-American architect who worked with Frank Lloyd Wright on the Imperial Hotel — is the centrepiece: a graceful, light-filled home now open to the public free of charge, with a cafe on its ground floor and period rooms above. Close by stands the Yamate No. 234 Bank (Yamate 234-ban Kan), a preserved 1920s apartment building for foreign residents. Together they let visitors step inside the everyday elegance of Yokohama's interwar international community.

As a garden, Motomachi Park is modest but well tended, with lawns, mature trees, seasonal flower beds and shaded walking paths that climb the slope in gentle terraces. Cherry trees bring blossom in spring, hydrangeas colour the early summer, and the broadleaf trees turn warm in autumn. Water features and stone retaining walls, some dating from the site's history as the location of an early water-purification works, add texture, and there is a small children's play area that makes it a handy stop for local families. Because it is set back from the main streets and shaded by trees, the park stays noticeably cooler and quieter than the pavements below.

The atmosphere is gentle and residential — this is a neighbourhood park used by Bluff locals, dog-walkers and parents with young children, rather than a crowded tourist site, and that unforced calm is exactly its charm. Visitors typically drift up from the Motomachi shops, wander the terraces, look through the Ehrismann Residence, and pause at its cafe before continuing along the ridge toward the Yamate Italian Garden, Harbour View Park and the other preserved houses that string along the Bluff. The whole area rewards unhurried walking, and Motomachi Park is one of its most pleasant links.

To reach it, ride the Minatomirai Line to Motomachi-Chukagai Station and walk up through Motomachi, or come from Ishikawacho Station on the JR Negishi Line. The park grounds are open at all hours and free, while the historic houses keep daytime hours and close occasionally for maintenance. Half an hour to an hour is enough to enjoy the greenery and step inside the Ehrismann Residence — and it pairs naturally with a longer stroll through Motomachi and along the historic Bluff.