McLean Hospital National Register District

McLean Hospital occupies about 308 acres on the southeastern slope of Belmont Hill, eight miles west of Boston. Planned between 1872 and 1892 and built mostly in the 1890s, it was the first full-fledged cottage-plan psychiatric hospital in America. Rather than one large institution, it uses smaller free-standing buildings arranged on a hilltop, with the main front row of Administration, South Belknap, Appleton, North Belknap and Proctor overlooking a broad lawn called the Bowl. Service buildings and patient wings extend behind, joined by underground tunnels. The setting was meant to be therapeutic, with enclosed patient yards, curving drives, specimen trees and wooded buffers. The landscape retains features proposed by Frederick Law Olmsted and designed by Joseph Curtis. Buildings include eight Colonial Revival structures by Fehmer & Page. The district also takes in the former McLean Farm, now town conservation land called Rock Meadow. It was listed for its design quality, its integrity and its role in psychiatric hospital planning, and the hospital still operates today.