621 West Capitol Drive / White Elm Nursery
Eighty acres of the Charles Hasslinger farm were purchase in the early 1920s by
the White Elm Nursery Company of Watertown, which moved its offices and nursery
to Hartland in 1925. The nursery announced plans for a new office and
greenhouse in 1928, and the new facility opened March 22, 1929. The first floor
housed the office, drafting room and showroom, while the upstairs was used as
residential quarters for the caretaker.
The one-and-one-half story main building has a stone veneer, stucco and applied
half-timbering on the upper story. A gabled wall dormer is found on the east
facade, a gabled entrance pavilion with a round-arched wood door on the west
facade, and a large brick chimney stock on the south facade. A small, one-story
stone veneer section With a gabled roof is located southeast of the main
building that forms a passageway into the glass greenhouse.
The White Elm Nursery is a good example of the Tudor Revival Style executed on a
grand scale. As a combination nursery and residence, it too is an unusual
building type. The White Elm Nursery closed and liquidated its inventory in
1952.
If you have any historic pictures (preferably pre-WWII) that you would like to
share with the Hartland Historical Society,
please let us know by emailing us at:hartlandhistory@gmail.com.