Tower Hill. John W Trexler
an ambitious and socially popular production held at the organization’s 30 Elm Street headquarters in downtown Worcester. Popular as it was, the show was an energetic spike in a generally flat year and WCHS was at something of a crossroads. When John arrived, the board was considering one of three options: maintain the status quo; merge with a compatible organization or; as improbably ambitious as it must have sounded, “develop a horticulture center in an accessible location.” The rest, as they say, is history.
Only thirty-two in 1984, John promoted the bolder and far more adventurous path of moving WCHS out of Worcester and establishing Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston. Clearly, he was a shrewdly enlightened, not just a “benign,” dictator. He had the good sense and imagination to engage and, herein, generously credit a diverse cast of supporters—loyal staff, national experts, local philanthropists—to help him create what has become one of the most appealing horticultural institutions in the Northeast. Alexander Pope famously advised the Earl of Burlington on gardens for his newly built Chiswick House to “Consult the genius of the place.” John did just that, not only with his plans for the remarkable Boylston property with its majestic view of Mt. Wachusett, but also through his deft engagement of people and institutions throughout Worcester County itself and beyond. Thanks to John’s leadership, attentiveness to detail and overall vision, WCHS did not so much leave Worcester as it helped reconnect the second largest city in New England with its ecologically essential and aesthetically inspiring countryside.
In doing so, he used fifty years as his planning horizon—a remarkable perspective for a youthful activist. John Trexler’s accomplishments in developing Tower Hill bring to mind an observation made in 1876 by another local horticultural luminary, Edward Winslow Lincoln, who, with his cousin Stephen Salisbury III, developed the Worcester park system: “It is given unto men to see visions and to dream dreams; yet it is vouchsafed to few to behold their realization.”
Tower Hill: The First Twenty-Five Years is a wonderful account of a dream realized—an account that will appeal to anyone who visits Tower Hill, but even more importantly, a story that should inspire anyone with the imagination and commitment to re-invigorate and make current a venerable institution at an existential crossroad.
Jock Herron
Instructor in Architecture
Collaborative Design Engineering
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Cambridge, MA
TOWER HILL
The First Twenty-five Years
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.
—Dorothy Parker, Not So Deep as a Well (1937)
Chapter One
California Story
Above: Tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera)
My father was a naval officer. We moved fifteen times by the time I was seventeen. Many of those moves involved long car rides imprisoned in the back seat with my three siblings. As the car sped along, I remember gazing out the window wondering what that blur of green was. At some point I learned that the green was trees—east coast trees, mid-west trees, mountain trees, west coast trees. I became determined to learn what each individual tree was. Thus began my long romance with gardening. For forty-one years I worked in public horticulture. Seven years at Ringwood State Park, six years at the Morris County Park Commission— both in new Jersey, and twenty-eight years at the Worcester County Horticultural Society in Massachusetts. Those years were spent learning, gardening, guiding, teaching, designing, raising money and initiating and completing dozens of garden projects. I enjoyed every minute of every day. There were frustrations and setbacks but they were overshadowed by the many successes. This book is my story: from my gradual introduction to the world of gardening to the opportunity to build one of America’s great public gardens, 1956-2012.
Early in my career at the Worcester County Horticultural Society, Isabel Arms, Vice President of the Board of Trustees, reviewed my accomplishments and said, “These many realized goals are the work of a benign dictator, a man with a kindly and gracious disposition.” I took this as a great compliment. Isabel would later make a bequest of more than a million dollars to the Society.
My very first plant memories are from when I was five years old living in a suburb of Madison, Wisconsin. Our house was part of a new development built on what had been farm fields and the old farmhouse was diagonally across the street. The couple that had farmed the land continued to maintain a large fruit and vegetable garden. I remember one solo visit to that garden where the farmer’s wife let me pick currants. I had no concept of why or how this fruit came to be, but I do remember how good it tasted and how pleased my mother was to get a small bowl of the berries.
Kindergarten was not my “finest hour.” If one could fail kindergarten I managed to do it. My one happy memory from that difficult year was the lesson of sowing a lima bean in a milk carton. One day we were told to bring an empty milk carton from the cafeteria after lunch. We were shown how to put soil into the carton, place a large bean seed into the soil and then add a bit of water. We wrote our names on the cartons and placed them on the windowsill. Each day we dutifully repeated the exercise of adding a small amount of water to the soil. When we returned to the classroom after the following weekend we witnessed with surprise and delight the emerging plants. The experience was simple, but, as it turned out, inspiring.
Not Even Asking
As an adult I gained a reputation for acquiring things for whichever institution I was working for. The first thing I ever acquired, however, was for myself, though it was unintentional. I was six years old. I had an earache. My father tried to relieve my discomfort by blowing cigarette smoke into my ear. It did not work. My mother’s remedy was to put cotton in my ear—a lot of cotton. It did not work. They called a doctor who lived across the street and asked if he would take a quick look. “Sure” he said, “bring him over.” I remember how young the doctor and his wife looked. They had me lie on my side on their kitchen table so they could get a good view of my ear. My gaze from that position was to the top of the refrigerator. There, I focused intently on a blue and red plastic wishing well. With his wife holding my head, the doctor slowly removed a wad of bloody cotton with tweezers. He examined the inside of my ear and finding no damage, gave me ear drops that immediately soothed the ache. During the procedure the wife had noticed me staring at the wishing well and, when I was ready to go home, she asked if I would like to have it. I didn’t really want it, but I said yes to please them. A repaired ear and a toy—quite a night.
The Trexler family, 1955
Left to right: Jimmy, Sally, John, Emily, Trex, Bobby
That was the first time I realized I had the ability to acquire things without really asking.
I was eight-years-old and living in Coronado, California, when I was introduced to what a “garden” is and the different aspects of gardening. At that age you tend to be fairly active—bike riding, roller-skating, skateboarding, and using our favorite toy the Flexible Flyer (the California version with wheels). We made a lot of noise and had a good time horsing around but there were times I needed a little eight-year-old quiet reflection. These moments led me to Dr. Wheeler’s house next door. Dr. Wheeler had made it clear that no one—especially children—were