{"id":25919,"date":"2025-02-07T17:15:39","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T22:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=25919"},"modified":"2025-02-08T08:37:40","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T13:37:40","slug":"greenhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2025\/02\/07\/greenhouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Escape From The Bitter Cold In A Greenhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When it gets especially freezy out, I like to escape to a local greenhouse for a bit of warm, green humidity. So I recently made a getaway to the Lyman Estate Greenhouses<\/a> in Waltham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The estate was created by Theodore Lyman, funded with a fortune he amassed through shipping\u2014with interests ranging from the Northwest fur trade to the China trade\u2014and marriage. Lyman bought up small farms that he turned into his estate, crowned by a federal style house that he built in 1793 based on designs by Salem\u2019s Samuel McIntire. By the time of Lyman\u2019s death in 1839, the grounds encompassed 400 acres. Today, the National Historic Landmark property is 37 acres and operated by Historic New England<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lyman build his first greenhouse there in 1804\u2014the three-section grape house to grow citrus, figs, pineapples, bananas, and forced native fruits. It was expanded with the 1820 camellia house and an 1840 greenhouse connecting the two. The greenhouses are open Tuesdays to Saturdays, admission is free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Drawing
Drawing of Lyman Estate Greenhouses by Greg Cook, Waltham, Jan. 23, 2025. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some other greenhouses to check out:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Courtyard at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum<\/a>, Boston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Global Flora conservatory<\/a> at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Roger Williams Park Botanical Center<\/a> in Providence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022\u00a0Conservatories at New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill<\/a> in Boylston, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Lyman Plant House and Conservatory at The Botanic Garden of Smith College<\/a>, Northampton, Massachusetts. Free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Durfee Conservatory<\/a> and Morrill greenhouses<\/a> at University of Massachusetts Amherst. Free (I think).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, occasional newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2025 or the respective creato<\/em>rs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Lyman
Lyman Estate Greenhouses, Waltham, Jan. 23, 2025. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Lyman
Lyman Estate Greenhouses, Waltham, Jan. 23, 2025. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Lyman
Lyman Estate Greenhouses, Waltham, Jan. 23, 2025. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Lyman
Lyman Estate Greenhouses, Waltham, Jan. 23, 2025. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Lyman
Lyman Estate Greenhouses, Waltham, Jan. 23, 2025. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Lyman
Lyman Estate Greenhouses, Waltham, Jan. 23, 2025. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Lyman
Lyman Estate Greenhouses, Waltham, Jan. 23, 2025. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Lyman
Lyman Estate Greenhouses, Waltham, Jan. 23, 2025. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it gets especially freezy out, I like to escape to a local greenhouse for a bit of warm, green humidity. So I recently made a getaway to the Lyman Estate Greenhouses in Waltham. The estate was created by Theodore Lyman, funded with a fortune he amassed through shipping\u2014with interests ranging from the Northwest fur […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[1301,987,1297,1300,1298,1299,529],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25919"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25938,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25919\/revisions\/25938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}