Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens

Inland of Delray, in what was once swamp and pineapple fields, the Morikami is an authentic Japanese garden complex of six distinct styles — from the 9th-century paradise garden of the Heian period to a flat dry-rock karesansui — set around a small museum of Japanese art and the lake that was central to the original Morikami farm. It is unexpected, well-maintained, and easily the most contemplative attraction in this part of Florida.

The garden circuit takes about an hour at a relaxed pace; the museum adds another hour, with rotating exhibitions, a permanent collection of bonsai and ceramics, and a film about the Yamato Colony. The on-site Cornell Cafe does a credible Japanese lunch menu with bento boxes and ramen on a deck overlooking the gardens. Closed Mondays. Admission around $20; cheaper for residents.

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The Morikami sits on land that was once part of the Yamato Colony — a 1905 Japanese pineapple-farming settlement of about 30 men, mostly young, who came on the promise of a Florida agricultural boom that never quite arrived. The pineapple market collapsed and most of the colonists eventually drifted away. One, George Sukeji Morikami, stayed on alone for sixty years and quietly built up a 200-acre vegetable farm — which he then donated, on his death in 1976, to Palm Beach County on condition it become a Japanese cultural park.

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