{"nrhp_refnum":"93001482","name":"Metropolitan State Hospital","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"475 Trapelo Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Waltham","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.40187250000005,"lon":-71.20832998820634,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1994-01-21","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Social History","Health/Medicine","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state","local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 330-acre state mental hospital campus at 475 Trapelo Road, spanning Waltham, Lexington and Belmont, Massachusetts. Built from 1927 mainly in red-brick Colonial Revival style, it was designed largely by Gordon Robb, with landscape engineering by R. Loring Haywood.","why_significant":"It was the last of the great state institutions for the mentally ill in Massachusetts and the most mature, cohesive expression of the state's twentieth-century hospital goals. It combined the congregate and dispersed patient-housing systems, and its standardized building types served as models for post-1930 construction at other state hospitals. Its pastoral grounds are also among the few in the system designed by a known landscape professional.","narrative":"Metropolitan State Hospital is a 330-acre campus of red-brick, Colonial Revival buildings set across the Waltham, Lexington and Belmont town lines. Construction began in 1927, and most buildings date to the 1930s. The main group sits on high ground behind broad lawns and trees, so visitors see it only gradually from Trapelo Road. Landscape engineer R. Loring Haywood shaped the grounds, while architect Gordon Robb designed most of the buildings. The plan joined two older approaches to patient care: large congregate buildings and dispersed, classified housing. The Continued Treatment Group, for example, forms a square of eight independent wards around an enclosed courtyard. Its hopper-style windows and screened porches avoided the need for bars and were copied at other state hospitals. Established in 1930 as the last great Massachusetts institution for the mentally ill, the hospital served as a model for later state construction. The eastern half of the site remains wooded wetland, and a hospital cemetery lies in the southeast.","period_of_significance":"1927 - 1940","architect_builder":"Gordon S. Kobb","architectural_style":"Late 19th/20th Century Revival - Colonial Revival","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Current function is listed as vacant, with former hospital, group home and agricultural uses; the cupola of the Administration Building is now aluminum sided.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:05.25539-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/90/7913/63791390/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/93001482.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/93001482/4cab699a33-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/93001482/4cab699a33-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Crash575","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Metropolitan_State_Hospital_Admin_Building.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Crash575</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Metropolitan_State_Hospital_Admin_Building.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63791390","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_State_Hospital_(Massachusetts)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6825261"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/metropolitan-state-hospital-93001482/"}