The Formal Gardens

In June, flowers in bloom in Alice Longfellow's formal garden.

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Location:

105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA

It is unknown exactly what this area looked like during the Vassall and Craigie eras. The first known garden in this area dates to when the Longfellows bought the property in 1843. After buying the house, Henry and Fanny designed a “lyre-shaped” flower garden and shortly afterwards in 1847, the Longfellows hired Richard Dolben to design a more elaborate garden that resembled a Persian carpet. Fanny Longfellow and Henry’s brother, Samuel Longfellow, were the most involved in the care of the formal garden. In a letter to family, Fanny once wrote, “Sam & I have not ventured yet to plant our seeds, therefore you shall benefit aid us with your experience & taste – a garden plot designed by Henry is just getting into shape, & I think will look very prettily when gay with flowers.” 

The formal garden’s design remained the same until 1905, when Alice Longfellow hired Martha Brookes Hutcheson to redesign her father’s garden in a Colonial Revival fashion. Hutcheson is noted for creating the layout that you see today and adding structural features like the pergola, fencing, and central sundial. Meant to reflect the house’s history, the formal garden is a blend of Dolben’s romantic curving design and Colonial Revival symmetry with a central axis. Hutcheson did not like the garden design but continued for the Longfellows, once writing, “Though I thought it [the garden] an ugly idea... I felt that it was a way in which one of my generation could pay him [Longfellow] homage.” 

Two decades later, Alice hired Ellen Biddle Shipman to replant everything within the existing garden beds. Shipman is noted for adding the trees and shrubs to the design and creating a flowing pattern of plants inside the flower beds. The garden you see today is a recreation of Shipman’s blueprints.