Originally consisting of more than four hundred acres of forest and farmland, the Brooks Estate was home to one of Massachusetts’ most prominent families. Today it offers acres of open space, walking trails, Brooks Pond, and a unique historic landscape supporting critical habitat for birds and small mammals. Visitors are welcome to walk the paths and enjoy the quiet and beautiful outdoors.

In the mid-nineteenth century Peter Chardon Brooks, III and Shepherd Brooks constructed summer estates on the property. Peter’s home, Point of Rocks, was designed by Calvert Vaux and was located on the highest point on the property. Shepherd’s home, Acorn Hill (the Manor) and carriage house was designed by Peabody and Stearns. Both families lived most of the year in Boston and summered in Medford, Massachusetts, then in the beginning stages of its transition from farm town to suburb.

An architect by training, Shepherd Brooks married Clara Gardner, niece of Isabella Stewart Gardner. The design of his summer estate was a large part of his life work. He transformed the landscape by creating Brooks Pond and cutting vistas to it. The Shepherd Brooks Manor and the Pond were central to his vision and the core of the historic landscape.

In 1942, the City of Medford acquired 82 acres of the Brooks Estate and demolished Point of Rocks. Fifty acres of the Brooks Estate and the two remaining historic buildings were permanently protected with conservation and historic preservation restrictions in late 1998. Overseen by the Medford-Brooks Estate Land Trust (M-BELT), the estate has undergone extensive restoration with funding from the Community Preservation Act.