As one exits the Museum center to begin the tour, one encounters the Chie no Wa Wisdom Ring—a replica of a 500-year-old stone lantern in Miyazu, Delray Beach’s sister city in Japan.
Naval commander James G. Woodruff, (a Pearl Harbor veteran) in memory of his wife, Hazel, a lover of Japanese gardens.
Phase One (completed in 1999) built the Yamato-kan pavilion, an historic stone lantern, a tsukubai (water basin), bonsai display, Allen S. Austin Memorial Waterfall (designed by Carn Reid), a kame shima (turtle island), a Challenger Memorial Lantern, Yamato Island, the Morikami Falls, the Wisdom Ring, a dry creek garden and part of the seven acre (2.8 hectare) lake.
The ishidoro lantern was originally erected in 1681 at Toshogu Shrine in Edo as a memorial to Ietsuna, the fourth Tokugawa shōgun.
The Wisdom Ring is a replica of a stone lantern (ishidoro) located in Delray Beach's sister city in Japan, Miyazu.