Hollywood’s Yamashiro Restaurant on the Market

Yamashiro, the Japanese palace nestled in the Hollywood Hills for 100 years that has served countless tourists and locals some not-so-great fare amidst a fantastic setting, is on the market for an undisclosed amount (they will accept all “reasonable bids.”)  The property includes seven gently sloping acres of hillside gardens and pagodas, the Hollywood Hills Hotel and Apartments at its base, and several ancillary buildings.

The main feature of course is the stunning 1914 Japanese palace-cum-restaurant that was a design based on seventeenth-century Japanese architectural traditions  with long hardwood beams carved with frogs legs and flowers, sliding panel windows and doors and half-timbering common to Japan. The restaurant was originally built as a home, with many small bedrooms on the second floor, and has a sunken garden and koi pond in its central courtyard. A 600 year old pagoda shipped in from Japan sits prominently on the property.

Yamashiro has been in the same family for 66 years, and the National Register of Historic Places deemed the entire property of concentric gardens, water features and nine buildings (including the Hollywood Hills Hotel) as the Yamashiro Historic District in 2012.

The Yamashiro website has some great old photographs presented on their historical page showing the early years of the restaurant: a time when the Hollywood Hills behind it were still barren and undeveloped, and the exquisite gardens and opulent interiors were all so very Japanese. We’ve included a few below – hop on over to their website for many more.

The following photos appear on the Yamashiro Hollywood website: