June-August: Experience Castle Hill after hours with themed cocktails, self-guided tours, and music at Cocktails at the Castle.March: Visit the Great House to get your thespian fix and take in Castle Hill’s latest theatrical production.Get a preview by visiting our online shop.įill your social calendar with must-attend events! Take home a memento of your time visiting Castle Hill or a gift for a loved one. Its wonderfully curated items, including snacks, mean that there is something for everyone. Shop our amazing Gift Shop, which is open in-person anytime the Great House is open. A relaxing seaside meal with your loved ones cannot be beat! Picnic at the edge of the Atlantic! Bring a picnic and a favorite blanket and you’ll be the envy of everyone you know on social media. Visit CraneOutdoors for our offering of guided hikes, and check out our property-wide trail map if you plan to set out on your own. Stroll across our meadows, dip into our woodland trails and summit our sandy dunes. Laid out in the classic “garden room” style, these gardens offer tranquility, musing and stunning backdrops for the special moments of our lives.Ĭastle Hill is a hiker’s paradise with hiking circuits that wind through manicured gardens, lawns, and paths, each dappled with statuary, fountains, and reliefs. Both have been renovated and are tended with expertise, love, and care. Garden enthusiasts will be transfixed by the spectacular Italian Garden and its sister, the show-stopping Rose Garden. We’ve got an app for that! Download “TourTrustees: Castle Hill smartphone App” from Google Play or the App Store to listen to a narrated audiotour. Check out our tour options and availability. See what it was to summer in Ipswich with the Crane family, visit the roof and learn about the architecture and innovation contained within the Great House walls, explore the formal gardens, or ride our tour cart around the barn complex and other buildings further afield. Tour the Great House, gardens, and/or landscape and be transported back to 1929. We tend to sell out on weekends and holidays in the summer and when the weather is fine. Admission is otherwise first come, first served. Having an advance grounds admission guarantees grounds admission for the day and time of your visit. Castle Hill is comprised of 165 acres and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998.Īdvance passes for grounds admission to Castle Hill are suggested but not required. Today, The Trustees stewards 2,100 acres of the family’s original 3,500-acre estate, which includes Castle Hill, Crane Beach, and the Crane Wildlife Refuge. Castle Hill came to us in 1949 upon the death of Mrs. In 1910, they amended their wills to reflect that they would one day bequeath this property to The Trustees. The Cranes understood the value of land conservation and historic preservation. Castle Hill became the centerpiece of an estate that once encompassed 3,500 acres, emphasizing the natural landscapes, their stewardship and protection. Today known as the Great House (1924-1928), it was designed by Chicago architect David Adler. The villa was razed in 1924, replaced with the Stuart-style mansion we see today, inspired by 17th century English country houses. and Arthur Shurcliff on the designed landscapes. The first house atop the Castle Hill was an Italian Renaissance Revival villa designed by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, who also worked with The Olmsted Bros. This European-inspired summer estate included a mansion, farm and estate buildings, a pool complex, designed gardens and grounds, and diverse natural areas. With their vision, working with a team of renowned architects, landscape architects and artists, Castle Hill was transformed into one of America’s great Country Place Era estates. Brown transformed Castle Hill Farm from an agricultural holding into a gentleman’s farm, improving roadways and plantings and renovating his modest farmhouse into a rambling, shingle-style cottage that is now The Inn at Castle Hill.Ĭhicago industrialist Richard Teller Crane Jr., heir to Crane Co., and his wife, Florence Higinbotham Crane, purchased the property in 1910. Over the years, it saw many owners, but the hill never had a castle built upon it. The land we call Castle Hill was originally stewarded by indigenous peoples, who called this area Agawam, meaning “place beyond the marsh.” Their sagamore, Masconomet, entered into an alliance with the settlers of Ipswich in 1632 and afterwards this drumlin by the edge of the Atlantic became known as Castle Hill.
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