Our gardens, farms, and cultural sites serve as first-class platforms to engage audiences of all ages. Offering truly unique educational and entertainment opportunities, they serve as community centers where friendships grow and family memories are made.
By making transformational improvements to several of our agricultural and horticultural properties, we are better connecting people to their history, their food, and the many cultures that make Massachusetts such a special place to live, work, and play.
The investments made through the Momentum campaign have allowed us to revitalize and rebuild our public garden spaces, expand our culinary programs to give children a hands-on understanding of where their food comes from, and showcase world-class artists and local storytellers connecting us to our history and offering diverse perspectives on the world around us.
We have hired expert horticulturists, museum curators, farmers, and gardeners to utilize these new engagement spaces we have built—whether it’s at a new state-of-the-art teaching kitchen at The FARM Institute on Martha’s Vineyard or the just-opened Nancy and George Putnam Horticultural Learning Center at Long Hill in Beverly.
Our cultural sites hold centuries of Massachusetts history and traditions through architecture, designed and natural landscapes, art, artifacts, and more. Investing in their future and presenting them in new ways so they can be enjoyed by future generations will allow them to continue serving as catalysts for exploration and innovation.
Major Accomplishments:
- In 2019 we successfully integrated deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln into the Trustees portfolio. Since becoming part of The Trustees, deCordova has hosted exhibitions from nationally acclaimed artists such as Sonya Clark and Jeffrey Gibson, and experienced record levels of visitors, including many families and first-time parkgoers.
- Through Momentum we were able to greatly expand our Mobile Farmers Market, which brings high-quality, affordable, and culturally relevant food to underserved communities in Greater Boston. The market travels five days a week to different neighborhoods selling fresh, healthy produce grown by Trustees farmers at Appleton, Chestnut Hill, and Powisset Farms. The program provides hundreds of households with fresh, local produce every year.
- We revitalized the Castle Hill Rose Garden by installing a new fountain and rebuilding the pergola, which at the same time improved safety by stabilizing the surrounding original columns. We restored the historic garden while preserving its romantic charm by applying a renovation solution designed to create a “rejuvenated ruin.”
- We completed a multi-year revitalization and redesign effort at Stevens-Coolidge House & Gardens in North Andover, which included repurposing an underutilized farm shed into the Garden Gateway—a new visitor welcome building and meeting space—as well as a new parking lot, refurbished existing gardens, and increased garden space.
- At Long Hill in Beverly we are also undertaking a multi-phase revitalization project. We have opened up vistas and restored views in the historic gardens, created a new entrance and accessible parking for the main house, completed construction of a private events pergola, installed a working greenhouse, restored two barns as educational workshop spaces, and transformed the historic farmhouse into a new center for horticultural learning. Included in the revitalization is a new garden room adjacent to the historic Sedgwick Gardens, and expansion of the gardens for the first time since The Trustees acquired the property in 1979.
- We launched a three-year Agroecology initiative to build our technical agricultural leadership, including a statewide soil health and productivity assessment for over 800 acres of Trustees fields, and a grazing study intended to inform a set of statewide farmland management standards.
- We completed the raising of the Deerfoot Barn at Chestnut Hill Farm in Southborough. After saving and dismantling a nearby 19th-century barn, the original timber framing was transported to Chestnut Hill Farm and reassembled with modern additions to serve as a community gathering and engagement space.
- The Art & the Landscape initiative traveled to six Trustees properties in 2019 as renowned artist Doug Aitken’s massive, reflective balloon, New Horizon, dazzled audiences across the state. In 2022, the newest Art & the Landscape exhibition Counterculture—created by Rose B. Simpson, a mixed-media artist from Santa Clara Pueblo—has opened at Field Farm in Williamstown.
