Colonial Homes and Revival Gardens

The House of the Seven Gables Historic Neighborhood in Salem, MA

Sep 18, 2007 Georgene A. Bramlage

The House of the Seven Gables Historic Neighborhood and complimentary Colonial Revival Gardens result from foresight and actions of antiquarians Emmerton and Chandler.

Preservation and Restoration

Historic houses and surrounding Colonial Revival gardens form The House of the Seven Gables Historic Neighborhood (Salem, MA.). Early 20th century demolition threatened most of these historic Salem homes. Caroline O. Emmerton, founder of the House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association, bought and moved them to The House of the Seven Gables neighborhood. There, they fit into an historic preservation plan created by Emmerton and antiquarian and preservationist Joseph Everett Chandler.

Emmerton and Chandler's foresight and actions were an early undertaking in New England colonial historic preservation. Their shrewdness also merged preservation with function. The museum site development built design and management for a specific function – earning money for the Settlement Association.

An average of 120,000 people visits The House of the Seven Gables Historic Neighborhood and its Colonial Revival gardens each year. On March 29, 2007, this icon of American imagination was named A National Historic Landmark.

Garden Designs

Gardens to delight viewers were an important part of the Emmerton-Chandler plan. Chandler describes in his 1924 book The Colonial House , colonial gardens as subtle in their refinements and distinct in their preponderating masses of green. However, in a continuing effort to draw visitors, the original as well as present-day gardens at The House of the Seven Gables Historic Neighborhood are colorful Colonial Revival and late 20th century.

From the Nomination Papers for Designations as a National Historical Site: The central quadrangle of the House of the Seven Gables site consists of two sets of U-shaped raised flower beds edged by boards and separated by gravel paths. At the center of each set is a rectangular bed in which is placed a seven-foot-high, vase-shaped iron rose trellis. The two trellises were imported from England in the 1920s and are believed to be reproductions of an eighteenth century design.

The central quadrangle filled with colorful flowering plants is what draws visitors into the heart of The House of the Seven Gables Historic Neighborhood. Other beds of attractive plants added over the later part of the 20th century appear to snuggle around houses within the neighborhood. This arrangement entices visitors and enhances the entire visual picture of The House of the Seven Gables Historic Neighborhood. Caroline O. Emmerton would have approved.

Gardens and Selected Houses

• Turner House (Turner-Ingersoll Mansion) AKA The House of the Seven Gables. Featured as an important part of the Emmerton-Chandler plan, construction and planting of the colorful raised bed Colonial Revival gardens did not happen until after the 1920s installation of the Retire Becket House, and the Barn and the Tea Room.

• Retire Becket House AKA The Gift Shop. Gardens feature Buxus (boxwoods.) A row of them separates the central quadrangle from the Wisteria-covered arbor. Astilbe, Alchemilla, and lilies line the arbor. There is also a rose trellis here. A central gravel path leads to a reproduction of “Maule’s well” depicted in Hawthorne’s story.

• Nathaniel Hawthorne House. Educational purposes and historical attraction, and the Hooper-Hathaway House. Educational purposes and to house offices of The House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association. A charming modern garden with typical Colonial Restoration plants fills the area between these two houses. An Ulmus (elm) tree is part of the original canopy. A small tree Viburnum enhances the entranceway.

• Grounds of adjoining buildings. Low-maintenance plants grow in neat and appealing shrub borders throughout the rest of the complex.

The copyright of the article Colonial Homes and Revival Gardens in Landscaping is owned by Georgene A. Bramlage. Permission to republish Colonial Homes and Revival Gardens in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Turner House - Raised Colonial Revival Beds

Pergola with Wisteria - House of 7 Gables Complex