Metropolitan State Hospital

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.