The former estate of the Tachibana lords of Yanagawa domain, set amid the canal-laced waterway town of Yanagawa. Known since the Edo period as Ohana-bata, the grounds preserve a Western-style hall and grand reception room built by Count Tachibana Kanji in 1910, alongside the nationally designated scenic garden Tachibana Family Garden (Shotoen) — a refined pond garden ringed by some 280 pine trees.…

The estate's origins trace to 1738, when the fifth domain lord Tachibana Sadayoshi established the Ohana-bata residence southwest of Yanagawa Castle. After the Meiji Restoration the Tachibana family entered the peerage as counts, and in 1909-1910 the fourteenth head, Count Tachibana Kanji, built the…