Ask a longtime Wellesley resident about the walk around Lake Waban and you'll get a version of the same story: it used to be the best walk in town, then the Hunnewell family shut their stretch of shoreline sometime during the pandemic, and that was that. The path became a there-and-back instead of a loop, dog walkers adjusted, and everyone moved on with a little resentment pointed at the estate on the lake's southern edge.
That story isn't wrong, exactly. But it skips the one detail that changes who you'd actually ask if you wanted the gate open again.
The Assumption Everyone Makes
The lake sits between the Wellesley College campus and a cluster of private estates on the southern shore, the largest of which belongs to the Hunnewell family. The full loop, when it's open, runs about 2.5 miles past specimen trees, a boathouse, and a topiary garden the Hunnewells have kept for generations. When the campus closed during the spring 2020 shutdown, both sides of the lake went dark. The college reopened its own section that November, but the Hunnewell portion stayed gated, and residents have assumed for years that the family simply decided to keep it that way.
What the Records Actually Show
Here's the part that surprised people when The Wellesley News, the student-run paper, investigated it in late 2025: the gates blocking the loop weren't installed by the Hunnewells on their own land. They were paid for and placed by the college, on the college's side of the property line. The family didn't build a wall around their estate. The college built one at the border of its own campus.
That distinction matters because it means the decision to keep the loop broken isn't sitting entirely with a private landowner who owes the public nothing. It's sitting, at least in part, with an institution that has its own public relations calendar to manage. When reporters asked the college directly, the response on record from the Director of Media Relations was gratitude that the family still allows campus community members onto their portion of the path a few times a year, not an explanation for why the gates went up on college land in the first place. The town's executive director, when asked separately, said the explanation she'd received was that the Hunnewells had experienced people overstepping onto private property, unleashed dogs and litter among the complaints. Neither account answers why the physical barrier sits on the college's own ground.
No one currently at the college, the town, or the family has gone on record with a fuller answer. That's not a scandal. It's just a closed loop with an open question, four going on five years running.
The gap in the path isn't a fence line. It's two locked gates: one behind the President's House, another at Pond Road, with the whole southern shoreline sealed off in between.
Where That Leaves a Walk This Month
If you're planning a fall loop around the lake, plan for an out-and-back, not a circuit. The open, college-owned stretch still gives you water views, a boardwalk section, and a look at the boathouse. A few practical notes before you go:
- Park only in Distribution Center Lot #2. Cars left at Cheever House, the Wellesley College Club overflow lot, or along Route 16 and Route 125 risk a ticket or a tow from the college or the town.
- Dogs are welcome but must stay leashed the entire time. Off-leash, even under voice control, isn't permitted on campus.
- There's no public access to campus buildings or restrooms along the route, though public-facing spots like the Davis Museum and the college bookstore keep their own posted hours.
- Don't count on finishing the loop. The college's own visitor guidance is direct about this: you won't be able to complete a circuit, so plan your turnaround point in advance.
The Occasional Exception
A handful of times a year, both gates open at once and walkers get the full 2.5 miles, topiary garden and all. These openings tend to track campus events, a family weekend or a busy admitted-students Saturday, and the college rarely announces them beyond its own community. If you happen to be walking near the boathouse on a weekend when the campus feels unusually busy with visitors, it's worth continuing past the usual turnaround point to see if the far gate is unlocked. There's no published schedule. It's a matter of timing and a little luck.
There's also a legal wrinkle that surfaces in conversation every so often and never quite resolves. Massachusetts law treats any body of water over ten acres as a great pond, which carries public rights to fish and navigate by boat regardless of who owns the surrounding shoreline. Lake Waban qualifies. Residents have raised the point for years as a reason the closure feels unsettled, but to date no one, not the town, not the college, not an individual resident, has pushed it into a formal legal claim. It sits alongside the gates: a detail everyone knows, that changes nothing on its own.
Why the Name on the Gate Matters More Than It Seems
There's a reason the Hunnewell name carries weight beyond one closed footpath. H.H. Hunnewell married into the Welles family and named his estate on the lake's southern shore Wellesley. The town took its name from that estate. The family whose gate now interrupts the town's best-known walk is, in a literal sense, where the town's name came from. That's not a reason the path should or shouldn't reopen. It's just the kind of detail that turns a closed gate into a conversation rather than a shrug, and it's part of why the story keeps getting retold at dinner tables and in the comment sections of local news sites years after most towns would have forgotten about a rerouted trail.
Finishing the Loop Somewhere Else
If an actual closed circuit matters more to you than lake views, Centennial Reservation offers one. The town bought the property in 1980, and its trail passes Bezanson Pond, named for a longtime resident who fished there as a boy. It's flatter, shorter, and won't put you face to face with a locked gate halfway through. Combine an early lap there with an out-and-back at Lake Waban and you've got a full morning of walking without repeating a single stretch of pavement.
September also gives you a reason to extend the day. The Garden at Elm Bank, on the Wellesley-Needham line, hosts its 140th New England Fall Flower Show September 18 through 20 this year, with vendors, demonstrations, and a Sogetsu School of Ikebana exhibit marking that group's own centennial. It's a short drive from either trailhead and a natural second stop if you're already out walking that weekend.
The Walk Nobody Needs to Wait On
None of this requires a decision from the college or the Hunnewells to be worth doing. The open half of the Lake Waban path is still, on its own, one of the prettiest half-hours you can spend in town, boardwalk sections over the water, sight lines across to the far shore, the kind of quiet that's hard to find this close to Route 16. The missing half just means you plan your turnaround instead of your finish line. Residents have been doing that for five years now, and most of them still walk it every week.
If you're new to town and still mapping out which walks, ponds, and village corners actually earn a repeat visit, that kind of local detail tends to matter more than anything on a listing sheet. The team at The Lara and Chelsea Collaborative spends as much time in Wellesley's neighborhoods as in its open houses, and we're always glad to talk through what a specific street, pond, or walk is really like before you commit to a search. Request a Private Consultation whenever you're ready to start that conversation.
