By Craig Gemmell
Head of School

Lamb Green is, maybe 80 feet by 300 feet, a grassy swath extending from Main Street to the east and terminating at the foot of the steps leading to the Academic Building. On July 1, I moved into Lord House — the residence named after Edwin Lord, the Academy’s first headmaster — right on the edge of Lamb Green.  

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I’ve found that Lamb Green is a wonderful, convenient spot for a quick walk of my dogs, regardless of the hour. Early on some dewy mornings like today, I literally start the granite ball (a gift from the Class of 2005) spinning on its axis while my dogs tug on their leashes. Or I grab an apple from one of the craggy old apple trees and gnaw on it while kids scratch my dogs’ bellies mid-day. Or I delight in the rare quiet at 11 p.m., knowing that kids are all resting in their dorms after a long day.

Lamb Green, it seems, embodies our values and does so particularly powerfully because it shows more than it tells: Dohrmann Circle funnels us together into an eddy — where teachers, students, dogs, even, pause to be together; the trees, in all their glorious diversity, from the stunning American basswood, to the iconic sugar maple to the stately white oak, to the multi-metaphoric apple tree, remind us that diversity makes us a whole. Perhaps most powerfully, Lamb Green is simultaneously a beautiful place and a tidy path that takes us, young and old, from a humble Admission building on Main Street across to a powerful, transformative, rich experience, all the while gaining glimpses of the lake and the west, the future, beyond.

On all my meanderings on Lamb Green and elsewhere at Brewster, in Wolfeboro, and my other haunts, I’ve come to embrace one truth: in the midst of all of our relentless moving, hustling, bustling, it is only in pausing that we can delight in where we are, how we got here, and where we should go. It is only in looking around can we get a bit better a sense of our selves, our souls. I invite you for a quiet walk about on campus when you have a moment. I’ll do my best to make sure my dogs don’t disturb you.