Long Hill (Beverly, Massachusetts)

IUCN Category V - Protected Landscape / Seascape

The former home

Long Hill is a 114 acres ( 46.1 ha) large nature reserve near Beverly, Massachusetts in the United States, which is administered by the organization The Trustees of Reservations.

Sanctuary

Ellery Sedgwick, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, the land acquired in 1916, as it offered a good view of the North Shore area. But his wife, Mabel Cabot Sedgwick, who was a well-known garden and landscape designer, wanted to remodel the site. So they built on top of the hill, after the tonight's reserve has been designated a residential building, which used it as a summer residence. Mabel designed the gardens and landscape details which are more than 100 years later, still widely recognized.

After her death in 1937 her vision was Sedgwick's second wife Marjorie Russel, an expert on rare plants was maintained and expanded. She added the plant canopy by new and rare trees and shrubs, some from the Arnold Arboretum of which came in Jamaica Plain. The garden area is structurally "rooms" divided into several that represent closed areas and are decorated with ornaments and statues. The gardens are designed as an extension of the living space and planted so that they blend with the immediate natural environment.

With the design of the interiors of their house the Sedgwick commissioned by the Boston company Richardson, Barrott and Richardson. The exterior design is in this case in the interior continued, as the rooms are decorated with murals captured in garden scenes and painted flowers. Also on display are elegant woodwork and fireplace mantels from the Isaac Ball House in Charleston (South Carolina).

The garden area is surrounded by woods and an orchard with apple trees, a lawn, a playground as well as agricultural land, including a 2 acres ( 0.8 ha) of large area belongs is organically grown in the vegetable of the organization The Food Project. Through the Reserve leads a 1.2 mi ( 1.9 km ) loop trail. The former home is now used as an office for the Trustees of Reservations.