{"nrhp_refnum":"86003565","name":"Elm Bank","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Bounded by the Charles River to the W, N, and E, and the carriage path to the S, off 900 Washington St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Dover","county":"Norfolk County","state":"MA","lat":42.27727500000006,"lon":-71.30311489225423,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1987-07-10","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Landscape Architecture","Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Elm Bank is a 182-acre former estate on a peninsula in the Charles River on the Dover-Wellesley border, Massachusetts, about 16 miles southwest of Boston. It centers on Baltzell House, a brick Neo-Georgian mansion built 1907-08, with outbuildings, bridges and remnants of formal gardens.","why_significant":"The excerpt of the nomination available describes the estate of Alice Cheney Baltzell and Dr. William Hewson Baltzell, centered on a mansion designed by the prominent New York firm Carrere and Hastings. Its grounds were landscaped between 1914 and 1927 by the Olmsted Brothers, building on earlier Cheney family landscaping. The Section 8 significance statement is not included in the text provided, so this reflects the description section.","narrative":"Elm Bank is a 182-acre estate on a peninsula formed by the Charles River, on the Dover-Wellesley border about 16 miles southwest of Boston. Its centerpiece is Baltzell House, a three-story brick Neo-Georgian mansion begun in 1907 for Alice Cheney Baltzell and Dr. William Hewson Baltzell. The New York firm Carrere and Hastings designed it with classical symmetry, Flemish bond brickwork, marble steps, a slate roof and richly ornamented interiors. It replaced an earlier Stick Style summer house built by her father, Benjamin P. Cheney. Surrounding the house are a brick carriage house, two Tudor Revival houses from about 1876, a boathouse, a garage, stone bridges and a tennis court. The Olmsted Brothers landscaped the grounds between 1914 and 1927, adding English and Oriental gardens, a stone-faced garden structure known as the Temple, and a canal bridge. Later owners included the Stigmatine Fathers and a vocational school, and the mansion has been vacant since 1981.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Carrere and Hastings (Baltzell House); Olmsted Brothers (landscaping)","architectural_style":"Neo-Georgian (Baltzell House); Georgian Revival and Tudor Revival outbuildings","criteria":[],"status_note":"Baltzell House has stood vacant since 1981; the grounds are described as maturing and unattended, and the estate was most recently used by the Quinobin Regional Technical Vocational High School.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:01.543283-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/0/7964/63796400/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/86003565.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86003565/922b75824f-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86003565/922b75824f-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Sculptor Martin Milmore (1844-1883); photograph by Daderot.","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elm_Bank,_Wellesley,_MA_-_Goddesses_and_Mansion.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Sculptor Martin Milmore (1844-1883); photograph by Daderot.</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elm_Bank,_Wellesley,_MA_-_Goddesses_and_Mansion.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63796400","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elm_Bank_Horticulture_Center","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q991258"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/norfolk-county/elm-bank-86003565/"}