Bruce Forster photo Portland Japanese Garden Curator Sadafumi Uchiyama examines a boulder of Baker blue granite. This is a defiant landscape, he said. Uchiyama worked with master stone mason Suminori Awata to select several feature stones, weighing approximately 8 tons each, for a Castle Wall at the Gardens new Cultural Village.

Baker Rocks Decorate Portland Japanese Garden

Baker blue granite is being used to construct a Japanese medieval castle wall in Portland.

A private quarry outside of Baker City is the source for stone in the wall that is part of a $33.5 million Portland Japanese Garden Expansion project.

The massive stones, which are as big as a car and weigh hundreds of tons, will be used to construct the 21-foot-high by 140-foot-long zig-zagging wall at the Garden.

The wall will contain 1,000 tons of the Eastern Oregon granite when it is completed.

Manager of the quarry, Dan Dunn, would like to keep its location undisclosed, said Claire Foster, communications specialist for the Japanese Garden.

“Dan Dunn … is very protective of the location – understandably so,” she said.”This quarry is only used for specific, one-of-a-kind projects like the castle wall.”

Foster said the Baker blue granite is very high quality and unique in its color. The Baker County quarry is one of the few places in Oregon where it’s possible to find native granite.

“Using local stones and plants is very important to the Portland Japanese Garden, which is a synthesis of Japanese garden arts and Pacific Northwest materials,” she said.

Project Architect Balazs Bognar said it’s a beautiful and superior stone with just the right color and texture for the project. He also explained the importance of where the stone comes from.

“It was important to us that the material come from a local source. The project is made special by being ‘of the place,’ which also means that materials should come from as close to the site as possible,” Bognar said. “We chose the local Baker blue granite for its excellent, timeless qualities.”

The wall will be one of a kind and the first such structure in the country.

15th generation Japanese stonemason Suminori Awata travelled to the quarry near Baker City in mid-September to personally select granite boulders for the construction project at the Japanese Garden in Portland.

See more in Monday’s issue of the Baker City Herald.