There is an isthmus poking out into Boston Harbor from near the town of Hingham on the south shore. At the tip, an island is attached by a narrow causeway. Beyond the water, the homes of Hull, a town on the Atlantic coast, look back at the wooded refuge. The elegant landscape is known as World’s End and it is a rarity.
During the second half of the nineteenth century, a businessman from Boston who had his summer home at the base of the isthmus, bought up the property from neighboring farmers. John Brewer had his own trophy farm on the site, but he had bigger plans for the windswept property on the bay. He envisioned a fancy housing development full of expensive mansions, and he hired the best of the best to design it for him: Frederick Law Olmsted.
In addition to designing parks, Olmsted was known for designing elegant communities in beautiful settings, which is exactly what he and his firm did for Mr. Brewer. There were only a couple trees on the property, and Olmsted proposed planting hundreds. Winding through the hilly topography, he laid out a system of carriage ways and mapped out housing plots that would maximize Brewer’s investment.
But as his workers were just finishing lining the lanes with gravel, the wealthy businessman died. His family was more interested in farming than he was, and also less interested in having neighbors. The trees grew tall and a forest took hold of the island, but no homes were built. Instead of fancy carriages, livestock and farming equipment used the curving paths.
World’s End continued as a private farm for the first half of the twentieth century, but when the family moved on, the property was left vacant. At one point, it was considered a location for the United Nations. Later, developers eyed the site for a nuclear power plant. Miraculously (and through a lot of advocacy and fundraising) the Trustees of Reservations managed to buy the property, and it is now used as a park. Parking is limited, so when visiting, buy a pass ahead of time, and, if you haven’t been before, prepare yourself to be amazed.
If unable to visit in person, along with this online tour, my book about World’s End is available from Levellerspress.com.
The tour was photographed between 2019 – 2020. To learn more about the book and World’s End, read this interview I did with the Olmsted Network.
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