Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The building is beautiful, the collection is amazing, and the whole museum is so… individual. It has a world-class collection, but everything is displayed just as Isabella Stewart Gardner left it, which makes it really stand out from your average run of museums.

I couldn’t believe how absolutely beautiful the structure is! Being an as-time-allows backyard gardener I loved the center courtyard. I can’t imagine being fortunate enough to live in a place like this. Incredible place, even if you aren’t interested in museums (which I am!)

As others have posted, this is a most unusual and beautiful place, and a museum only in the sense that it houses/protects priceless art. It is otherworldly, and sometimes in the oddest way - there is a sense of something here that is difficult to explain and not entirely comfortable - in fact, the place can be unsettling. It is a curious combination of light and dark, and much more of the latter than some of the posts on this site might convey. It has a subtle, but very real, sense of the genuinely gothic, where there is a touch of shadow (and sometimes much more than a touch) behind everything and a feeling that can, at times, border on the sinister. Even a perfect spring day in the courtyard is never exactly what it seems - it is more like a mild fever-dream of a spring day. I am surprised that the place has not become a stock setting for any number of novels and films - Hitchcock should have LIVED here (and Ms. Gardner herself, a genuinely mysterious, goddess blonde, would surely have been a fitting muse).

In all, I obviously recommend the place most highly, but was simply surprised at how few posts commented on its unique energy.

Happily, I was able to see this museum before the big art theft. What a tragedy. It’s still well worth a visit, though!

Such a beautiful place …. almost something other than a museum, like from another world. Extraordinary place filled with lovely art from all over, with a peaceful, quietly refined atmosphere. If you’re ever in Boston, I very highly recommend visiting if you have a chance!

I’m not big on museums, but their courtyard is super nice. What a beautiful garden. My grandmother used to take me and my brother here to have picnics.

Went here in the fall on a freshman field trip. Sooo beautiful.

So peaceful – a hidden gem in a great city. You could sit in the courtyard all day, but take the tour.

In July 2006 a lot of exhibits were missing due to renovation and/or cleaning. It’s sad to not enter one of the rooms because it’s closed off. It’s a beautiful house and I could sit by the garden all day long. I wish there were tea parties held in the house. My favorites parts are the collection of handwritten letters and the paintings to the left in the small room right after you pay at the register! A lovely place that I’ve been to multiple times and hope to visit again & again in the future.

...because I won’t be able to visit all those places I wanted to…