Shepherd Brooks Estate, Historic museum estate in Medford, Massachusetts, United States
Shepherd Brooks Estate is a historic red brick manor house set across 82 acres in Medford that features multiple gables and a complex roofline. The main building sits on Grove Street and forms the center of a substantial property with outbuildings and manicured grounds.
The estate was built in 1880 by Shepherd Brooks and remains the last surviving 19th-century property in Medford that keeps its original structural features. Its completion marked the height of an era when wealthy families built grand residences in this region.
The estate displays the building style preferred by wealthy Massachusetts families through its Queen Anne design created by architects Peabody and Stearns. This architectural approach offers a window into the aesthetic choices that shaped homes for the upper class in the late 1800s.
The grounds are open to visitors daily from sunrise to sunset, with guided tours of the manor house offered during the summer months. Wearing comfortable shoes is helpful since the property is expansive and some areas are unpaved.
Brooks Pond, the largest artificial water feature in Medford, was hand-dug starting in 1884 by Irish immigrants to enhance the landscape. This labor-intensive project shows the lengths that wealthy property owners went to create elaborate grounds.
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