Hunnewell Estates Historic District

Last updated

Hunnewell Estates Historic District
Pond Road and Washington Street Wellesley MA.jpg
View of fields and pastures at Hunnewell Farm, Pond Road and Washington Street.
USA Massachusetts location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location Wellesley, Massachusetts
Coordinates 42°16′48″N71°18′30.5″W / 42.28000°N 71.308472°W / 42.28000; -71.308472
Built1770 to 1891
Architect Arthur Gilman; John Sturgis; Gridley J.F. Bryant; Ware & Van Brunt; Stanford White; Shaw & Hunnewell
Architectural styleColonial, Italianate, Colonial Revival, Late Victorian, 19th & 20th Century Revivals.
NRHP reference No. 88000438 [1]
Added to NRHPApril 14, 1988

The Hunnewell Estates Historic District is an historic district between the Charles River and Lake Waban in Wellesley and Natick, Massachusetts, about 17 miles west of Boston. It consists of the large group of 18th to 21st century agricultural and estate properties with farmland, gardens, residences, and landscapes of the Hunnewell and Welles families. The properties in the Historic District are still largely owned and occupied by members of the Hunnewell family. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. [2]

Contents

All of the properties within the district are private residences, and are not open to the public.

History

Topiary 'Italian Garden' on the H.H. Hunnewell estate circa 1909. Hunnewell Gardens, on the shore of Lake Waban, Wellesley, MA (1909).jpg
Topiary 'Italian Garden' on the H.H. Hunnewell estate circa 1909.

The origin of the Hunnewell estates dates to 1763 when Samuel Welles (1725-1799) made his first purchase of Indian lands in Natick and West Needham (later Wellesley). Welles was a descendant of Thomas Welles (1594-1660), 1st Treasurer and then Governor of the Colony of Connecticut. The properties descended to Samuel's granddaughter Isabella Pratt Welles and her husband, successful railroad financier and businessman, landscape designer, and horticulturalist H. Hollis Hunnewell (1810-1902), and continued with their adult children and the following generations. [2] [3] Mr. Hunnewell and his family gave much to the town of Wellesley (formerly West Needham), which was named after his wife's family - the Welles, and to Boston, with civic philanthropy in numerous fields.

They also were generous to the New England horticulture community for over 75 years via importing, testing, and distributing many new plant introductions, estate site planning and garden design examples, and supportive leadership in the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. [3] Horatio Hollis Hunnewell was especially interested in coniferous and broad-leaved evergreens, and Asian rhododendrons. [3]

At their peak during the early 20th century 'American Country Place' era, there were twenty contiguous Hunnewell estates along Washington Street and Pond Road in southwest Wellesley. [2] The estates have now been in the Welles-Hunnewell family for eight generations.

Conservation

The family has placed hundreds of acres in the district under perpetual conservation restrictions, primarily with The Trustees of Reservations, protecting Lake Waban and the Charles River, as well as the farmland, gardens, landscapes, vistas, and natural native landscapes from development. [2] These restrictions, starting in 1974, were among the first placed with the Trustees of Reservations.

None of the properties are open to the public. However, while maintaining its property rights in this regard, the family until March 2020 had traditionally allowed members of the neighboring Wellesley College community to enter the properties to walk the private path around Lake Waban. Then, consistent with the closure of the Wellesley College campus to the public in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the lakeside path on the properties was also temporarily closed. Most recently, after a brief reopening of the trail and for reasons unrelated to the Covid-19 pandemic, chain link fences were constructed in December 2021 by Wellesley College blocking trail access on both sides of the Hunnewell property, preventing walkers from traversing the Hunnewells' rhododendron grove, obtaining a closeup view of the topiary gardens and circumnavigating Lake Waban.

Historic district

The district includes the original Welles homestead, the Hunnewell Farm, and the eight contiguous country houses and outbuildings H. H. Hunnewell built for himself and seven of his nine children: [2]

1875 Stick style residence of Walter Hunnewell (1844-1921) in the historic district. Architect: Ware & Van Brunt. Ware&VanBrunt Walter Hunnewell House.JPG
1875 Stick style residence of Walter Hunnewell (1844-1921) in the historic district. Architect: Ware & Van Brunt.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beatrix Farrand</span> American landscape architect (1872–1959)

Beatrix Cadwalader Farrand was an American landscape gardener and landscape architect. Her career included commissions to design about 110 gardens for private residences, estates and country homes, public parks, botanic gardens, college campuses, and the White House. Only a few of her major works survive: Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden on Mount Desert, Maine, the restored Farm House Garden in Bar Harbor, the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, and elements of the campuses of Princeton, Yale, and Occidental.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natick, Massachusetts</span> Town in Massachusetts, United States

Natick is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is near the center of the MetroWest region of Massachusetts, with a population of 37,006 at the 2020 census. 10 miles (16 km) west of Boston, Natick is part of the Greater Boston area. Massachusetts's center of population was in Natick at the censuses of 2000–2020, most recently in the vicinity of Hunters Lane.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wellesley, Massachusetts</span> Town in Massachusetts, United States

Wellesley is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Wellesley is part of Greater Boston. The population was 29,550 at the time of the 2020 census. Wellesley College, Babson College, and a campus of Massachusetts Bay Community College are located in the town.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Sprague Sargent</span> American botanist (1841-1927)

Charles Sprague Sargent was an American botanist. He was appointed in 1872 as the first director of Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts, and held the post until his death. He published several works of botany. The standard botanical author abbreviation Sarg. is applied to plants he identified.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arnold Arboretum</span> Botanical garden in Boston, Massachusetts

The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is a botanical research institution and free public park, located in the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1872, it is the oldest public arboretum in North America. The landscape was designed by Charles Sprague Sargent and Frederick Law Olmsted and is the second largest "link" in the Emerald Necklace. The Arnold Arboretum's collection of temperate trees, shrubs, and vines has an emphasis on the plants of the eastern United States and eastern Asia, where arboretum staff and colleagues are sourcing new material on plant collecting expeditions. The arboretum supports research in its landscape and in its Weld Hill Research Building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">H. H. Hunnewell estate</span> Country home of H. H. Hunnewell (1810–1902)

The H. H. Hunnewell estate in Wellesley, Massachusetts was the country home of H. H. Hunnewell (1810–1902), containing over 500 species of woody plants in 53 families. The estate remains in the family, and includes the first (1854) topiary garden in the United States, featuring intricate geometrically clipped native Eastern white pine and Eastern arborvitae. A collection of specialty greenhouses feature over 1,000 plant species. The estate has been cared for by six generations of the Hunnewell family.

Horatio Hollis Hunnewell was an American railroad financier, philanthropist, amateur botanist, and one of the most prominent horticulturists in America in the nineteenth century. Hunnewell was a partner in the private banking firm of Welles & Co. Paris, France controlled by his in-laws, which specialized in trade finance between the two countries. Practicing horticulture for nearly six decades on his estate in Wellesley, Massachusetts, he was perhaps the first person to cultivate and popularize rhododendrons in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elm Bank Horticulture Center</span>

The Gardens at Elm Bank, home of Massachusetts Horticultural Society, occupies 36 acres (15 ha) of Elm Bank Reservation, a 175-acre (71 ha) recreational area of woodlands, fields, and former estate property on the Charles River managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. The estate's entrance is located at 900 Washington Street, Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States, with the major portion of the grounds located in the neighboring town of Dover. In 1987, the entire site was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Elm Bank.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guy Lowell</span> American architect and landscape designer

Guy Lowell, was an American architect and landscape architect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park</span> United States historic place

Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park, which includes the Coe Hall Historic House Museum, is an arboretum and state park covering over 400 acres (160 ha) located in the village of Upper Brookville in the town of Oyster Bay, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernest Henry Wilson</span> Botanist (1876–1930)

Ernest Henry "Chinese" Wilson, better known as E. H. Wilson, was a notable British plant collector and explorer who introduced a large range of about 2000 Asian plant species to the West; some sixty bear his name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow Jr.</span> American architect

Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow Jr. was an American architect and nephew of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Winthrop Sargent</span> American horticulturist and landscape architect

Henry Winthrop Sargent, American horticulturist and landscape gardener.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wellesley Town Hall</span> United States historic place

Wellesley Town Hall is located at 525 Washington Street in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Occupying a prominent location in Hunnewell Park near the town's central business district, this Romanesque stone building was designed by Shaw & Hunnewell and built between 1881 and 1886. Its construction was funded by, and was built on land donated by, H. H. Hunnewell. The east end of the building, which was finished first, was opened as the public library in 1883, the initial collection of which was also funded by Hunnewell. The building is a striking example of the then-fashionable Richardsonian Romanesque, although it also exhibits French Chateau features seen by the architects during travels in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Case's Corner Historic District</span> Historic district in Massachusetts, United States

Case's Corner Historic District is a residential, civic, and rural historic district in the geographic center of Weston, Massachusetts. The district is centered on the four-way intersection of School, Wellesley, Newton and Ash Streets in Weston, Massachusetts, and runs mainly along Wellesley Street, which runs north-south through the district between the centers of Weston and Wellesley. The district encompasses a pastoral landscape managed by Marian Case, a horticulturalist and landscape preservationist. One of its central features is the Case Estates, a 60-acre (24 ha) property bequested by Case to Harvard University that once served as a nursery for Boston's Arnold Arboretum. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windsor Road Historic District</span> Historic district in Massachusetts, United States

The Windsor Road Historic District is a residential historic district just north of the village of Waban in Newton, Massachusetts.It includes 48 houses on Windsor, Kent and Hereford Roads, a cul-de-sac subdivision adjacent to the village center and the Brae Burn Country Club, which was mostly developed between 1888 and 1920. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sargent's Pond</span> United States historic place

Sargent's Pond is a man-made 3-acre (1.2 ha) pond on Sargent Road in Brookline, Massachusetts, United States. The pond was created by Charles Sprague Sargent in the late 1870s as a centerpiece of his family's extensive Holm Lea estate. Sargent's estate has since been subdivided, but the roads giving access to it run along the estate's original alignments. Sargent landscaped the estate using similar principles to those he applied at the Arboretum, with vistas and a variety of trees and shrubs. The pond was created by damming a brook. It still has naturalistic plantings around it, although some Sargent's rhododendrons have died.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wellesley College Botanic Gardens</span> Botanic gardens in Wellesley, Massachusetts, U.S.

The Wellesley College Botanic Gardens are botanical gardens located on the campus of Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The greenhouses and 22 acres of outdoor gardens include thousands of plants representing over 1,500 different taxa from more than 150 different plant families.

Arnoldia is a quarterly magazine published by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. It is an interdisciplinary publication with articles covering a broad range of topics including plant exploration, plant taxonomy and biogeography, landscape design, and more. While the authors are primarily researchers and other plant professionals, all are encouraged to write with a narrative and explanatory style that is accessible to a wide range of readers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George R. Shaw</span> American architect and botanist (1848–1937)

George R. Shaw (1848–1937) was an American architect in practice in Boston from 1874 to 1902. In retirement, he was noted as a botanist.

References

  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Arnoldia issue 64/4 - Hunnewell Estates . accessed 5.15.2011
  3. 1 2 3 4 Arnoldia vol.12, issue 9-12; Dec. 1952 - "The Hunnewell Arboretum, 1852 - 1952" . accessed 5.15.2011