Burlingham House Visitor Center at Weir Farm National Historical Park

LOCATION

Burlingham House, which is the Visitor Center for Weir Farm National Historical Park, is located a tenth of a mile down Nod Hill Road from the Weir House and the other main attractions at the park. The parking lot is across the street. It cannot accommodate RVs, buses, or other large vehicles.

OPERATING HOURS

• May 1^st until October 31^st
• Wednesdays through Sundays from 10 AM to 4 PM

Times can always change, so before making travel plans be sure to get the current schedule on the National Park Service’s official Operating Hours and Seasons web page for Weir Farm National Historical Park.

AMENITIES

• Information desk where you can get a park brochure and trail map for the adjacent Weir Preserve, sign up for a guided tour of the Weir House, and speak with a Ranger about what there is to do at the park
• Exhibit Area and Art Gallery
• Film about J. Alden Weir and the Impressionist art movement
• Book and souvenir store
• Restrooms are located in the nearby barn

PARK FILM

A 6-minute film on impressionism and the art of Julian Alden Weir, Ways of Seeing, plays on a loop in the Visitor Center’s exhibit area. There is no objectionable material, so the film is suitable for all ages.

EXHIBIT AREA AND ART GALLERY

Exhibit area inside the Burlingham House Visitor Center at Weir Farm National Historical Park

The Burlingham House Visitor Center features a small exhibit area with information about the Impressionist art movement and its effect on the art of Julian Weir.

Exhibit on the Impressionist art movement at the Burlingham House Visitor Center at Weir Farm National Historical Park

A few of Weir’s original paintings can be seen in an adjoining room. The artworks on display change from year to year.

Artworks of Julian Alden Weir are on display inside the Burlingham House Visitor Center at Weir Farm National Historical Park

SCHEDULING YOUR TIME

Allow a half hour to watch the park film, read the information in the exhibit area, sign up for a Weir House tour, and talk with a park Ranger about what there is to see and do in the park.

BURLINGTON HOUSE HISTORY

The house, which dates to the mid-1700s, was the summer home of J. Alden Weir’s daughter Cora and her husband Charles Burlingham. It was not part of Weir’s original 1882 land purchase. He bought the house and a 50-acre farm from the William Web Family in 1907, expanding his property holdings to 238 acres. None of the Weirs lived in the house up until Cora moved in (1931). During J. Alden’s lifetime it is believed that the house was occupied by a tenant farm family, for while Weir ran his property as a working farm, he knew nothing about farming and had to hire actual farmers to manage the operation.

Burlingham House Visitor Center at Weir Farm National Historical Park

When Weir died in 1919, his second wife, Ella, and daughter Dorothy continued living at Weir Farm. Dorothy inherited the entire property upon Ella’s death in 1930, and she gave the former Webb Farm to her sister Cora in 1931. Cora renovated and expanded the house throughout the 1930s, though she and her husband only lived in it during the summer and a few weekends during the winter. When Charles died in 1979, Cora rarely came back, instead choosing to rent the house to a family from New York. When she died in 1986, she left the farm to the Trust for Public Lands, which in turn donated it to the National Park Service in 1990 for the creation of Weir Farm National Historic Site (changed to Historical Park in 2021). In fact, only the Web Farm was initially open to visitors. The actual Weir House and grounds were not publicly accessible until the third and final private owner, Andrew Sperry, died in 2005.

Cora was interested in horticulture, and it is she who designed the surrounding garden terraces (mid-1940s), had a stone potting shed built next to the house (1940), commissioned the building of many of the stone walls (1930s and 40s), and hired Friede Stege to redesign the Sunken Garden (1969). In 1969, she gave 37 acres of her land to the Nature Conservancy to form the Weir Preserve located adjacent to Weir Farm National Historical Park. The preserve has since grown to 110 acres due to other land donations.

Sunken Garden at Weir Farm National Historical Park

Terrace Gardens at Weir Farm National Historical Park

Stone shed next to the Burlingham House commissioned by Cora Weir, Weir Farm National Historical Park

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