Summertime activities and destinations in Lincoln, Massachusetts

Lincoln offers rich history, nature trails, local food, and art.

A summer exhibit at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (above) highlights abstract art…

Photograph courtesy of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum

…including the atmospheric Untitled (1979), by Jeanne Leger. 

Photograph courtesy of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum

The formal Codman Estate

Photograph by Aaron Usher/Historic New England

An interior at the Gropius House

Photograph courtesy of Historic New England

Codman Community Farms

Photograph courtesy of Codman Community Farms

Just 19 miles from hot and congested downtown Boston lies the bucolic town of Lincoln. Even before postwar suburbia arose, Lincoln’s leaders and residents eschewed sprawl. As a result, more than 38 percent of the community is protected land. Eighty public trails, some of which begin at the MBTA commuter-rail station, skirt Walden Pond and wind through farmland, woods, and meadows.

The star cultural destination is the 30-acre deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, dotted with 49 works. Jonathan Gitelson’s existential billboard asks: Are You Here? (2016).Visitors walk right into Dan Graham’s Crazy Spheroid—Two Entrances (2009), a half-circle of two-way mirrored glass, and they play The Musical Fence (1980), a vertical aluminum xylophone by Paul Matisse ’54. Easy walking paths lead to a café, picnic spots, and shady lawns; the museum’s stone terrace overlooks Flints Pond. On exhibit inside, through September 17, is “Expanding Abstraction: New England Women Painters, 1950 to Now,” celebrating contributions by Natalie Alper, Reese Inman ’92, Katherine Porter, and Barbara Takenaga, among others.

Not far away is a modernist enclave anchored by the Gropius House, the former family home of Bauhaus architect and influential Harvard Graduate School of Design professor Walter Gropius. It’s now owned by Historic New England, and open for tours, as is the Codman Estate nearer to the town center.Beautiful gardens surround a Georgian mansion built by judge and politician Chambers Russell, A.B. 1731, A.M. ’66 (who left it to a Codman relative). Russell also was instrumental in the founding of Lincoln in 1754; it’s named for his ancestral home in Lincolnshire, England—not for the American president.

A short trail walk leads to the town-owned Codman Community Farms. Visit the barnyard, take classes, volunteer to work, or buy eggs, meats, produce, and flowers. Nearby, on a larger scale, Mass Audubon’s Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary runs an animal farm and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, along with year-round events and workshops. For food and drinks, head to Lincoln’s only commercial cluster, next to the train station. Dip into Donelan’s Market or the Trail’s End Café for picnic fare, or sit down for a meal at Lincoln Kitchen.

Read more articles by Nell Porter-Brown

You might also like

Harvard Film Archive Spotlights Japanese Director Mikio Naruse

A retrospective of the filmmaker’s works, from Floating Clouds to Flowing

A Harvard Art Museums Painting Gets a Bath

Water and sunlight help restore a modern American classic.

A Paper House in Massachusetts

The 1920s Rockport cottage reflects resourceful ingenuity.

Most popular

How MAGA Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.

Harvard Panel Debunks the Population Implosion Myth

Public health professors parse the evidence surrounding falling U.S. birth rates.

Harvard art historian Jennifer Roberts teaches the value of immersive attention

Teaching students the value of deceleration and immersive attention

Explore More From Current Issue

John Goldberg

Harvard in the News

University layoffs, professors in court, and a new Law School dean

Colorful illustration of woman multitasking with laptop, baby bottle, toy, and checklist.

Motherhood and Ambition in a Pronatalist World

Gen Z is confronting the age-old question of balance—with a new twist.

Will Makris in blue checkered suit and red patterned tie standing outdoors by stone column.

A New HAA President at a Tumultuous Time

A career in higher ed inspired Will Makris to give back.