Hawthorne Hill was built for the Bayard Thayer family in 1904. It was one of five Thayer family estates created in Lancaster, Massachusetts. The mansion was created by architects Guy Lowell and Robson Sargent, and landscape architects Herbert Browne and Arthur Little designed the gardens. Both Bayard and his wife, Ruth (Simpkins) Thayer were avid gardeners and had many special collections in their gardens and greenhouses.
Lost Gardens of Worcester County (LGWC) is a project to identify and document the outstanding gardens of the past in Central Massachusetts. Table of Contents
Hawthorne Hill, the Thayer Estate
Iristhorpe, the Gage Estate
Juniper Hall, the Whittall Estate
Knollwood
Mariemont
Stoddard Garden
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1862 Apr. 3 - Twins Bayard and John Elliot Thayer born in Boston, MA, sons of Nathaniel and Cornelia (van Rensselaer) Thayer
1896 - Bayard marries Ruth Simpkins in Yarmouth, MA
1903-7 Hawthorne Hill built
1916 death of Bayard Thayer in Lancaster, MA
1941 - property sold to a Greek Orthodox seminary Lancaster Institute
1953 "The Cenacle" purchased the estate
abt. 1975 Protestant Guild for the Blind
1979 - sold to Maharishi Global Development
2014-2015 for sale $16,000,000
