Not technically abandoned as someone owns it but it is definitely deteriorating. If anyone has some spare change it is on the market for a little over a half mil. All this aside it has an interesting history which I have posted below. If some one willed you a town house on condition that you live in it for the rest of your life, chances are youd pass up the privilege in favor of maintaining your mobility and keeping out from under the overhead. But, if the same dwelling were offered along with $1,000,000 in cash, youd probably accept and regard the restrictions lightly. Thats exactly how it happened to the late Mr. and Mrs. Arthur E. Childs of Worcester, Massachusetts, soon after the turn of the century. A brilliant inventor and financier, Mr. Childs had purchased extensive acreage in Harrisville, New Hampshire, with the intent of building a hunting lodge....So, rather than spend his retirement in Worcester just because the rent was free, he schemed with his wife and his lawyers to get around the will by moving the mansion to New Hampshire. The structure was dismantled with great care, all key members being numbered. Then everything, including stones from the foundation, was hauled to Harrisville over the Boston & Maine railroad. And by the time it was all put together again on its new site opposite Mt. Monadnock, at an elevation of 1900 feet, the Childs had spent $150,000. But that was only the beginning...Before they were through with developing their new rent-free estate, they sunk approximately $1,500,000 into this fabulous property. Our story begins more than 100 years ago. Records on file with the Worcester Antiquarian Society reveal that the Harrisville mansion was originally built by one William A. Wheeler before 1851, near Lincoln Square. It was sold in 1865 to Philip L. Moen who, in turn, willed it in 1891 to his fourth child, Alice Grant Moen, under provision already stated. The house was built of wood, adorned with massive ornamental trim in the grand manner of the period. Having become associated with the Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Co., aggressive Arthur Childs entered our picture via the widely-approved stratagem of marrying the bosss daughter. But nobody was going to push Arthur Childs around, not even a ghost! Ultimately a prime organizer of the New England Power Association and the Columbia National Life Insurance Co., he was also a talented electrical engineer whose ideas readily produced profits...So, when he and his wealthy wife could no longer resist the urge to settle on the sylvan slopes at Harrisville, along about 1909, Mr. Childs simply laid it on the line with his attorneys, architects, builders and the Boston & Maine railway. Before the fifty or more wagon-loads of dismantled parts were hauled away from the Harrisville railroad station by oxen, horses and mules, a driveway one and a quarter miles long had to be hacked out of the hillside. Although we could find no one in Harrisville who actually took part in this tremendous job of transportation, there seems little doubt that the procession was reminiscent of the wagon treks of the old west. Countless barrels of water also had to be hauled over the grades for animals and men during those first weeks before an adequate well was dug. And every time a driver paused to rest his lathered beasts, he had to place huge blocks behind the wheels to hold his tonnage against the risk of backsliding into the teams which followed. Except during the very worst winter weather, there never was any letup on building activity around this great estate (later known as Aldworth Manor) until the late 20s. Hardly recognizable today as the original mid-19th century classic, the Childs incorporated many changes in its exterior to reflect their passion for the Spanish-Italian Renaissance period. The wooden walls of the house had been painted a sombre gray at Worcester but they matured in Harrisville with a mellow stucco finish (now ivy-covered), a regal balcony supported by pillars and a Cuban tiled roof. The surrounding flower gardens, too, are formal Italian, terraced and accented with marble statuary. With more than ten acres of lawn included, the landscaping alone is said to have cost $50,000. Once inside, however, old Mr. Moen would probably have to admit that he found things much as they had been originally at Worcester. The ceilings above reception hall, living rooms and dining room all feature massive exposed beams. Too bad they cant tell us about both the grim and the gay currents of life which coursed beneath them during a century of looking and listening! Many elegant ladies and more than a few industrial manipulators must have sipped their champagne before Aldworths five polished marble fireplaces. Plagued from the start by lack of water, Mr. Childs finally overcame this problem by drilling a well 600 feet down into the bowels of his private mountain. Above this he erected a seventy-five-foot tower to house a tank to insure ample pressure by gravity to his many elegant bathrooms. Adequately insulated to prevent freezing in sub-zero temperatures, this tower is constructed like a lighthouse and affords an unobstructed view of the surrounding countryside. By the time the last outbuilding was completed, just before the stock market crashed in 1929, the Childs were employing seventeen hands on the grounds and ten servants inside. Whether or not this staggering payroll was a contributing cause well never know, but Arthur Childs lived on in elegance only until 1934, when he died in Boston. And his wife, whose father had unwittingly set the stage for this bizarre adventure, outlived her husband by only a few years. Operated as a private sanitarium for about twenty years following Mrs. Childs death, Harrisvilles fabulous hilltop mansion has recently been re-opened as a boarding school for boys. The Thomas More School is named for Sir Thomas More, a philosopher and statesman under Henry VIII (who might well have found these surroundings fit for a king). So well-endowed with heritage, the old Moen manor should serve well in the field of education...Its lessons are already legion. After the Thomas Moore boarding school move the property was sold to Antioch College and was later purchased by Mountain Missionary Institute otherwise know as MMI. MMI is currently selling the property to a new organization called New England Wellness and Education Center or NEWEC. Please visit the rest of the NEWEC website to see what we are doing.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 00:13:46 +0000
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