Walden Wood

Walden Wood

Walden Wood

Walden wood is a community comprised of 157 single family homes, most located on relatively short cul-de-sac streets. The community's well-built homes range up to 2200+ square feet and are on highly treed lots that are somewhat larger than most lots in surrounding neighborhoods. The community has a gated community area with pool, playground, tennis court, and gazebo.

Summerhomes Community

Walden Wood was developed by Summerhomes Incorporated, who designed the community and initiated the Walden Wood Association along with it's Bylaws and Articles in Incorporation in 1986. The Summerhomes builder was Charlie Brown. The community was contructed in two phases with the West side (Phase I) completed first followed by the East side (Phase II).

What's in a Name?

From cnn.com todayl.Massachusetts: Exploring Thoreau's Walden; Wednesday, July 9, 2003 Posted: 11:33 AM EDT (1533 GMT)

WALDEN POND, Massachusetts (AP) -- A walk around Walden Pond can take as long as you need.

It was to this peaceful New England lake that a remarkable individual from nearby Concord came to live alone, clearing a spot for a one-room cabin.

Henry David Thoreau -- the man who urged us to "simplify, simplify" -- immortalized Walden as the birthplace of the conservation movement.

Thoreau lived here between 1845 and 1847, bathing in the pond in the mornings, the only person in sight, and wrote one of the most breathtaking books of early American philosophy: "Walden, or Life in the Woods."

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived," Thoreau wrote in "Walden."

Today, Walden Pond is a treasure well maintained.

There are no billboards, the woods have been kept intact, the visitor's center is unobtrusive. It is still peaceful, even though it is peopled with fishermen, walkers and families, and even though you can get there by car.

Designated a National Historic Landmark thanks to Thoreau, the 103-foot-deep glacial kettle-hole pond is today a 333-acre state reservation. Surrounded by 2,280 acres of woods, the "Walden Woods," it is a perfect spot for reflection.

Whether Thoreau is for you the quintessential ecologist or the first dysfunctional suburban kid, the pond he so admired remains timeless.

Rich history

A replica of Henry David Thoreau's one-room cabin sits in Walden Woods. Thoreau lived in the woods between 1845 and 1847.
Walden is smack in the middle of American consciousness. No wonder: It's smack in the middle of where the American nation began -- in the pastures and woodlands outside Boston.

Down the road is Minute Man National Historical Park, where arguably the American Revolution started on April 19, 1775, when American militia men -- "minute men" -- attacked British soldiers advancing on a stash of arms in Concord.

The combatants "met in a series of unplanned skirmishes along a 22- mile stretch of road that ran from Boston to Concord," reads the national park's Web site. "The events that occurred along the Battle Road would mark the beginning of a struggle between British authorities, determined to enforce the will of Parliament, and the people of Massachusetts, determined to retain their rights as English citizens. An American war for independence and self-government was born which would last more than eight years."

Thoreau was born on July 12, 1817, in Concord, the home of other American intellectual giants such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

He wound up on Walden after Emerson, a close friend and philosopher, let him build a cabin on a woodlot he owned there.

At Walden, Thoreau experimented in living independently as he sought self-fulfillment and closure over his brother's death.

He grew beans, did the first survey of the lake, and contemplated nature's exquisite gallery. He wrote of Walden as an eye -- "intermediate in its nature between land and sky" -- and described it as "blue at one time and green at another."

Besides "Walden," Thoreau also drafted his first book during that fertile period, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," a short tale of a journey he took with his brother in 1839.

Thoreau's lessons

Bill Shields, 86, of Arlington, Massachusetts, walks along the ridge trail at Walden Pond.
A Thoreau reader will walk with a slow gait around the lake, mindful of the nooks and crannies of nature, pause to observe other visitors and wonder what the lake was like when Thoreau lived here.

Of course, it is best to have read Thoreau's works to experience a sense of awe. But a venture to the pond can be, of course, a good reason to pick up Thoreau -- whether for the first time or not.

The lessons of Thoreau, a schoolmaster in later years, are as valid as ever. Nuggets of thought jump from every page of his works.

"There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living," Thoreau wrote in "Life Without Principle."

He left Walden in September, 1847, and gave the house he had built in the woods to Emerson. It switched hands a couple of times -- to Emerson's gardener, and then to two farmers who turned it into a grain shed on the side of Concord. In 1868, Thoreau's former home was taken down and used as scrap lumber.

Back in society, Thoreau continued working as a surveyor and pencil maker. He forged ahead with his studies and writing, and taught at the Concord Lyceum and elsewhere in New England.

The sparsely furnished replica of Thoreau's one-room cabin is seen through a window which reflects the surrounding woods.
His interests turned toward politics and social justice. He championed equality and blasted slavery. Indeed, his family helped runaway slaves escape to freedom in Canada.

His 1849 essay, "Civil Disobedience," eventually brought him fame outside the United States.

"On May 6, 1862 at the age of 44, the self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and author renowned for motivating the world to value our natural environment, died after a prolonged struggle with tuberculosis," says the state Web site on Thoreau and Walden.

Reaching Walden is a milestone for a traveler and a Thoreau admirer.

Questions about the genius of Thoreau will pop up anew: What did he intend when he chose to not pay the poll tax, which landed him in jail? What were his priorities? And what should ours be?

At Walden Pond, the self reviews itself. And a walk around it is both puzzling and refreshing.

About our association

You are a Member !

Walden Wood is a deed-restricted community with covenants and restrictions intended to maintain the beauty of the communty and protect property values. The restrictions are focused on major items such as property maintenance/upkeep, approval of new or modified structures, and control of tree cutting. Every Walden Wood homeowner is a member of the Association. An Association board of directors is elected annually by the homeowners and meets regularly to carry out the needs of the Association; including maintaining community property, bylaw enforecement, and dues collection. Given the number of services available, the relatively small quarterly dues is considered by most to be the best deal in town.