Longfellow Garden

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

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Location:

105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA

Designation:

National Register

Amenities

2 listed

Benches/Seating, Cellular Signal

In 1847, the Longfellows hired English landscaper Richard Dolben to design a formal garden behind their Cambridge mansion. The result was an Italian Renaissance garden with a Gothic “rose window” in the center and an overall Persian carpet pattern; remnants of this design can still be seen today.

Following Henry Longfellow’s death in 1882, the garden fell into disrepair. The poet’s daughter, Alice Longfellow, took an interest in the garden, hiring one of America’s first female landscape architects, Martha Brookes Hutcheson, to restore it in 1904. Hutcheson reestablished the original boxwood parterres, then enclosed the garden with fences, gates, and a pergola to make an “outdoor room,” typical of the Colonial Revival style.

At the center of the garden, Alice Longfellow placed a sundial inscribed “Pensa che questa di mai non raggiorna” or “Think that this day will never dawn again.” It was a favorite line of her father’s from Dante’s Purgatorio.

In 1924, Longfellow hired Ellen Biddle Shipman to rejuvenate the space. She was known for her painterly design, enclosed spaces, and for emphasizing the relationship between garden and house. Shipman planted the rectangular borders with heirloom roses and added evergreens and ornamental fruit trees to give the garden height. Just as importantly, Shipman made detailed planting diagrams and cultivar lists for future maintenance.

In the late 20th century the garden again fell into disrepair, and only the smaller center portion of the garden was maintained by the Cambridge Plant and Garden Club. In 2003, the Friends of Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters funded the restoration of the garden. Using Shipman’s extensive documentation and heirloom varieties of plants, Alice Longfellow’s Colonial Revival garden has been recreated for visitors to enjoy today. The pergola and fences are reproductions of the 1904 originals, the flowers are varieties and colors enjoyed by Alice Longfellow, and the central rose window feature honors the Victorian design.