Architecture Commons^™

One Grand Park: Remaking New Hampshire Farms Into Summer Homes, 1870-1930, Lorayne Billings

MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019

In the late nineteenth century, the growth of industry, western competition, costs, and poor soil caused some New Hampshire farmers to quit the farm, leaving the buildings uninhabited. New Hampshire state officials were not interested in rescuing those farms, but were interested in stemming the negative publicity about abandoned farms. The state legislature passed an act to encourage immigration into the deserted farms, and Nahum Bachelder, secretary of the state board of agriculture, advertised the farms as summer homes for well-heeled urbanites. He eventually received criticism for pursuing self-serving interests and for neglecting official agricultural duties, specifically to the struggling …