Mytoi Japanese Garden, Chappaquiddick: Hours, Admission, History and How to Get There (2026)

Mytoi is fourteen acres of Japanese-inspired garden in a pine wood on Chappaquiddick, a pond with an island you reach by an arched bridge, a birch walk, a camellia dell and a stone garden, kept by the Trustees of Reservations and reached by a three-car ferry with no timetable. It is the quietest place we know on the island, and one of the few that is as good in November as in June. This is how to get there, what it costs, what to look for, and the story of how a summer resident's private garden, half-destroyed by a hurricane, became the place it is now.

Getting there

Mytoi is on Dike Road, about two miles from the Chappaquiddick ferry landing. Take the On Time ferry from Edgartown (it runs continuously, a few minutes across, no schedule to check), follow Chappaquiddick Road to the fork and bear left onto Dike Road; the garden is on the left with a small lot for fifteen cars. Roadside parking is prohibited and enforced, so if the lot is full, wait or come back. Many people bike it, which solves the parking and suits the pace. Our Chappaquiddick guide covers the ferry fares, the road and what else is out there.

Hours and admission

Open every day from sunrise to sunset, all year. From May through October non-members pay $10 per adult, with children 12 and under free; Trustees members pay $5 or nothing depending on membership level. From November through April the garden is free for everyone. There is an honour box at the gate when nobody is there, and it deserves the ten dollars: the entry fees are what pay for the pruning.

A short history

In 1954 Mary Wakeman, who summered on Chappaquiddick, bought land for a house and a three-acre parcel across the road, and hired Hugh Jones, an Edgartown architect who had summered on Chappy as a boy and been posted to Japan in the military, to make a garden of it. The name, Mytoi, is simply "my toy" spelled to look Japanese; it has no meaning in the language. Jones tended it until 1965, Wakeman kept it up after him, and in 1976 she gave it to the Trustees, who extended the land in 1981. Then in August 1991 Hurricane Bob flattened it: uprooted pines, shrubs torn out, the pond choked. The landscape architect Julie Moir Messervy redesigned the garden in the years after, and volunteers rebuilt it by hand. What you walk through today is largely her plan, thirty years grown in.

What to look for

The path is a loop and the garden reveals itself in rooms. The pond with its island and bridge is the centre; look for painted turtles on the stones and the goldfish under the bridge, and for the ospreys that fish it in summer. The birch walk is at its best in the low light of morning or late afternoon. The camellia dell flowers in spring, the azaleas after it, and the stone garden and the hillside garden hold the structure in winter when everything else is bare. There is a small open shelter for sitting out a shower, and benches placed exactly where you want them. Give it an hour; it is not a big garden, and hurrying through it is the one way to get it wrong.

Rules, and the spirit of the place

No bicycles and no dogs inside the fence, which the Trustees ask for plainly and which the garden needs. Stay on the paths, keep voices low, and leave the stones where they are. The garden is at its best when there are fewer than ten people in it, so go early, or in the shoulder months, or on a grey day, which is when a Japanese garden looks most like itself. Our rainy day guide lists it for that reason.

Accessibility

The paths are gravel and packed earth with gentle grades, and the loop around the pond is manageable for a sturdy stroller or an all-terrain chair with help; the bridge is stepped. Year-round portable toilets at the lot include an accessible one, and the Trustees are adding adaptive equipment on their island properties, so ask them what is available before you cross. The accessibility guide has the ferry and bus details.

When to go, and what to pair it with

Late May for the azaleas and the first turtles; October for the colour in our photographs; a still January morning for the stone garden and the silence. Mytoi pairs naturally with the rest of Chappy: continue down Dike Road to the Dike Bridge and the Cape Poge beaches, or go back to the fork for Wasque Point at the island's southeast corner, both Trustees properties with their own fees in season. Bring water and lunch, because there is nothing to buy on Chappaquiddick at all, and mind the last ferry if you stay for the evening. The word Chappy itself, and a few others you will hear on the boat, are in our island glossary.

At a glance

How we checked this

Hours, admission, parking and rules are from the Trustees' Mytoi page as of September 2026. The history follows the Trustees and the Vineyard Gazette's 2023 account of the garden. The photographs are ours, across several autumns and springs. Fees change with the season and the Trustees revise them most years, so check before you go.