Join me for a visit to Long Hill in Beverly MA on October 15.  

Long Hill was owned and cared for by the Sedgwick family from 1916 to 1979, their summer home that, in the 1950s, became their year-round residence. Mabel Cabot Sedgwick, an accomplished gardener and author of The Garden Month by Month, and her husband, Ellery Sedgwick, noted author and editor of The Atlantic Monthly, summered here until Mabel died in 1937. After Mabel’s death, Ellery married Marjorie Russell Sedgwick, a rare plants specialist. The combined creative vision of these two women led to the design of Long Hill’s enchanting gardens, surrounded by more than 100 acres of woodland.  

We can walk the gardens and then take a two mile hike through the surrounding hills.  It is a moderately difficult trail with roots and rocks but well maintained.  Long Hill is also doing a Halloween show during October.  We will not be part of that event, but we can enjoy 1500 carved pumpkins and various Halloween displays.  

I do not know the area well enough to suggest a lunch place but there are two restaurants three miles away that look attractive and reasonably priced.  We can go to one of them or another that you can suggest:

Depot Diner 23 Enon St, Beverly

Grassyroots, 136 Dodge St., Beverly