Tower Hill

Centerbrook is designing several new architectural additions to the Tower Hill Botanic Garden. Centerbrook's work will be built in phases. The garden is home to the Worcester Horticultural Society, the nation's second oldest, incorporated in 1842.

The new buildings complete a hilltop complex at the center of a beautiful, gently rolling 132-acre site. Existing buildings on the hilltop include an early eighteenth-century farmhouse, the 1994 Stoddard Education and Visitor's Center, and an eighteenth-century-style Orangerie with attached greenhouse.

Current landscaping on the site includes the Entry Garden, orchards, a Lawn Garden, a Secret Garden, the Systematic Garden, a wildlife refuge pond, woodland trails, and the Cottage and Vegetable Gardens.

Centerbrook's project fulfills a 1988 master plan for the complex by Marshall-Tyler-Rausch, landscape architects, of Pittsburgh. Centerbrook's work includes a new Horticultural Hall on the east side of the hilltop and a new Greenhouse north of the farmhouse on the south side. The new buildings will complete the hilltop quadrangle and form an enclosure for a new Winter Garden at the center, designed by Marshall-Tyler-Rausch, along with other new gardens and landscape improvements.

The new Horticultural Hall will provide generous multi-purpose space for horticultural displays, lectures, corporate gatherings, and special events. The building will also house Tower Hill's library and an enlarged restaurant. The Horticultural Hall's terrace and restaurant will overlook the future Herb and Physic Garden to the east.

The new Greenhouse, which will link the Horticultural Hall to Stoddard, is intended to house the camellia collection and to act in counterbalance to the existing Orangerie in framing the new Winter Garden. The Greenhouse will define the north wall of a new Container Court, which will be a flexible venue for the practice of handicapped gardening, plant sales, and seasonal exhibits.

Some renovations will be made to the Stoddard Center in order to expand its educational, administrative, and gift shop components. Other hilltop improvements include expanding the working greenhouses adjacent to the Orangerie, adjustments to vehicle circulation and loading facilities, and the addition of a second Pit House at the north end of the site.

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