Issue link: http://southshoremagazine.uberflip.com/i/880055
Fe a t u r e a r t i c l e 6 by Jeff Harder WORLD'S END STORY Four years ago, Peter Marotta clocked out of his job as a landscape architect in Hingham and paid his first visit to World's End—a lark at the end of a long day. Given his trade, he already knew that 19th century landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted left a mark on the 251-acre peninsula that juts into Hingham Harbor. As Marotta wandered along the Olmsted-designed network of winding 12-foot-wide carriage paths, this place he'd never been before suddenly felt familiar. The trees growing along the edges formed a screen for the emerald green fields beyond. Its agrarian past and conservation land present flattened into one another. It was as if the ghost of an old farmhand could have appeared around the corner, he says. Marotta, now the Engagement Site Manager for World's End, has since visited the property innumerable times, leading visitors on guided walks and exploring its nooks and crannies on his own. Every exploration illuminates new aspects of a place forever revealing itself. "World's End is kind of like a book by a famous author," he says. "You can read it as many times as you want, and you're always going to glean something new." This fall marks 50 years since World's End came under the auspices of The Trustees of Reservations, a 126-year-old, Massachusetts- based land conservation and historic preservation nonprofit that stewards 116 properties around the Commonwealth. Even before arriving in the hands of The Trustees, World's End was a South Shore sanctuary with 100-foot-high drumlins, 200 acres of fields, and superlative views. It was also a landscape occasionally under threat: by the 1960s, it had flirted with becoming a housing subdivision, a nuclear power plant, or the headquarters for the United Nations. A hurried, grassroots fundraising effort that drew on the devotion of the locals who love it saved World's End. Now, it's a place of respite for all. "Once you cross the bridge," Marotta says, "it doesn't matter how many people are actually