The Lyman Estate, also known as The Vale, is a historic country house located in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is now owned by the nonprofit Historic New England organization. The grounds are open to the public daily for free; an admission fee is required for the house.
The estate was established in 1793 by Boston merchant Theodore Lyman on 400 acres (160ha) of grounds, and was the Lyman family's summer residence for over 150 years. It consisted originally of the mansion and its lawns, gardens, greenhouses, woodlands, a deer park, and a working farm. Today the grounds contain a number of specimen trees, a 600-foot (180 m) brick peach wall,[clarify] and late 19th century rhododendrons and azaleas introduced by the Lyman family.
The back lawn and peach wallCarriage house and a greenhouseGreenhouse interiorBallroom
The fine Federal style mansion, with 24 rooms, was designed by Salem architect Samuel McIntire and completed in 1798. Its grand ballroom, with high ceiling, decorative frieze, large windows, and marble fireplace, was used for formal parties. A smaller oval room was used for family gatherings. McIntire's design was substantially altered during an expansion of the building in 1882 to designs by Richardson, Hartwell and Driver.
The estate's first greenhouse was constructed before 1800 and is thought to be the oldest in the United States. The Grape House, built in 1804 to raise exotic fruits such as oranges, pineapples, and bananas, today houses extensive grape vines, grown from cuttings taken in 1870 from Hampton Court in England. The Camellia House was built around 1820 for cultivation of camellias, introduced to America via Europe in 1797 from coastal China, Japan, and Korea. Many of the Lyman camellias are more than 100 years old. The greenhouses are open to the public.
In the 1960s, the Lyman family, after losing money to a declining textile industry, chose to sell portions of the estate. On October 4, 1962, the property was going to be sold to housing developers, but was instead sold to Bentley University for $365,000. It makes up most of the land that Bentley sits upon.[3]
The estate was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970 for its architecture and for its landscape design, which is remarkably rare for having retained much of its original 18th-century character.[4]
↑ "The Vale". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on October 8, 2012. Retrieved July 7, 2008.
Waltham is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, the city was a prototype for 19th century industrial city planning, spawning what became known as the Waltham-Lowell system of labor and production. The city is now a center for research and higher education, home to Brandeis University and Bentley University as well as industrial powerhouse Raytheon Technologies. The population was 65,218 at the census in 2020.
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Theodore Lyman III was a natural scientist, military staff officer during the American Civil War, and United States Representative from Massachusetts.
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The Chestnut Street District is a historic district bounded roughly by Bridge, Lynn, Beckford, and River Streets in Salem, Massachusetts. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and enlarged slightly in 1978. The district contains a number of architecturally significant works of Samuel McIntire, a builder and woodworker who had a house and workshop at 31 Summer Street, and who designed and built a number of these houses, and others that display the profits made in the Old China Trade by Salem's merchants. The district is a subset of a larger locally designated McIntire Historic District.
Beebe Homestead, also known as the Lucius Beebe House and Beebe Farm, is a historic Federal period home at 142 Main Street in Wakefield, Massachusetts, which was built during the federal era that extended from the late 18th-century into the 1820s. It is suspected to have been remodeled into the federal style from an earlier home built in circa 1727. It overlooks Lake Quannapowitt, and according to a 1989 study of historic sites in Wakefield, the house is "one of Wakefield's most imposing landmarks." The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
The Lyman Street Historic District is a historic district roughly encompassing Lyman Street between Church and Main Streets in Waltham, Massachusetts. Lyman Street was laid out in 1826 by Theodore Lyman, owner of The Vale, a country estate just to the north. Residential development took place along the street roughly between 1840 and 1900, resulting in a series of fashionable houses in a variety of 19th century architectural styles on the west side of the street. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
The Joseph Andrews House is a historic house at 258 Linden Street in Waltham, Massachusetts. Built in 1851, it is one of the city's oldest examples of Italianate architecture, and was one of the first houses built in Linden Street. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
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