The Highland Neighborhood

Historic Highland Park is best known for its unparalleled, vast collection of lilacs, which infuse the air with an almost overwhelming scent in late May. While the area is also well known for the nationally-known Lilac Festival, the surrounding neighborhood affords enviable opportunities to enjoy stunning Highland Park year-round. The idyllic homes and streets in the neighborhood are heaven for walkers, bird watchers, and outdoors enthusiasts who value the accessibility and action of urban living, but who also need daily immersion with real nature.  In addition to Highland Park, the grounds of the Colgate Rochester Divinity School soothe the soul with its dramatic Gothic architecture and hilltop vistas.  

The neighborhood is terraced against the glacial moraine that creates the city's highest elevations and best panoramic views. Century old trees frame many of the neighborhood's classic American Foursquares and stately Tudors, a living reminder of the area's early horticultural roots.

For much of the 1800s, the crest and hillside belonged to the grounds of the Ellwanger Barry Nursery Company. That firm, the first and leading nursery company in the region, helped to establish Rochester's lead in the seed and plant industry and confirm its title as the Flower City. In 1888, the aging partners, George Ellwanger and Patrick Barry, donated 20 choice hilltop acres to the city providing the distinctive rolling hills and valleys that make up the nucleus of today's Highland Park. Frederick Law Olmsted, renowned landscape architect of New York City's Central Park, designed the curving paths and outlooks. The lilac collection begun in 1892 with 20 varieties has today grown to more than five hundred. 

Smaller pocket parks and green spaces throughout the neighborhood provide additional, more intimate gathering spots. At the tiny triangle park where Mulberry meets Rockingham, neighbors meet at two picnic tables every Monday evening during warm weather for a community potluck.