The pond was created by Charles Sprague Sargent (best known as the first director of the Arnold Arboretum) in the late 1870s as a centerpiece of his family's extensive Holm Lea estate.

Sargent landscaped the estate using similar principles to those he applied at the Arboretum, with vistas and a variety of trees and shrubs.

It still has naturalistic plantings around it, although some Sargent's rhododendrons (a significant draw on occasions when he opened the estate to the public) have died.

[2] The pond (along with its immediately surrounding grounds) was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

[1] This article about a National Register of Historic Places listing in Norfolk County, Massachusetts is a stub.