Meredith Lee, the newly appointed director of the Hakone Foundation, plans to focus on developing new programming for Saratoga’s Hakone Estate and Gardens and on long overdue renovations for its koi pond.
Lee began as executive director of the Hakone Foundation, the nonprofit that manages the Hakone Estate and Gardens, in October. Lee, who has a background in nonprofit management and small business ownership, will be replacing longtime executive director Shozo Kagoshima, who served in the role for nine years. Kagoshima and Lee will overlap at the foundation through November,
Lee plans to focus on developing more events at Hakone to represent Japanese and Japanese-American culture.
“I think it’s just really important to embrace and cherish our history,” she said.
Emily Lo, chair of the foundation’s board, thanked Kagoshima for his service to Hakone and welcomed Lee to the community at an Oct. 2 Saratoga City Council meeting.
“We look forward to working with Meredith because with her background and abilities, I’m sure she will bring Hakone to a new chapter and a new height,” Lo said at the meeting.
Lee’s arrival to Hakone coincides with the city’s ongoing efforts to revitalize its commercial areas, including the Saratoga Village on Big Basin Way, where Hakone is located. The new executive director said she’s interested in getting involved in that effort, and attended a recent community meeting to brainstorm ideas for the revitalization effort.
“I’d like to collaborate with more small businesses and different groups within Saratoga and kind of promote our city, and businesses and the gardens,” she said.
Lee comes to Hakone as it contends with the future of its iconic koi pond. The pond, which is 100 years old, wasn’t designed to house koi fish and has begun to deteriorate with time. The foundation has embarked on a fundraising campaign, part of an effort that goes back almost 10 years.
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She said the organization hopes to begin construction on the pond in the fall of 2025, and feels confident that they’ll be able to raise the remaining $3 million the project needs.
“Sometimes fundraising can be tough, but I think when it’s a good cause that you know, people have been and will continue to be very generous,” Lee said.
Lee is no stranger to Hakone Gardens. As a longtime Palo Alto resident, she’s been to the gardens throughout her life, and recalls stopping by for a visit in 2020 just before widespread shelter-in-place orders went into effect with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She comes to the position from a unique background, ranging from small business ownership and nonprofit management to research and degrees in Asian-American studies. Now armed with an MBA from UC Berkeley, she said coming to the Hakone Foundation at this stage of her career “felt right.”
“It feels really good to me to be in a role now as executive director, it’s a culmination of all my career and academic experiences, and to be able to leverage that to support our organization,” she said. “I feel really lucky to have found this.”
