Tickets-Entertainment

Item Description

Visit the Castle and You'll See...

- spectacular mountaintop setting with breathtaking views of Lake Winnipesaukee

-  a mansion museum interpreting ca. 1914 Arts and Crafts architecture and lifestyle

-  wilderness setting amidst 5,245 acres owned and protected by the Lakes Region Conservation Trust and accessed by 28 miles of Trust maintained trails

-  the estate’s leisurely walks through beautiful gardens,  down a spectacular series of waterfalls, or along Shannon Pond’s edge to view and feed the giant trout swimming there

-  the Carriage House Art Gallery presentations of work by local artists and Old Masters

-  the wonderful luncheon menu, with sensational patio view,  offered by the Carriage House Café, named by Yankee magazine in 2010 the “Best in New England”!

-  the attractive Gift Shop presenting unusual, interesting items, books, artwork, and souvenirs

*Not to be used for Special Events. Expires on October 20, 2012.

Castle in the Clouds

Castle in the Clouds
PO Box 687
Moultonborough, NH 03254
Tel: 603-476-5900
Fax: 603-476-2512

Item Special Note

Tom and Olive Plant’s mountaintop estate "Lucknow", built in 1913-1914 high in the Ossipee Mountain Range with a breathtaking vista of Lake Winnipesaukee and the hills and mountains beyond.  Known as the Castle in the Clouds since its opening to the public in 1959, the house is an unusual example of Arts and Crafts architecture in New England, expressing that aesthetic movement’s philosophy of living in harmony with nature.  Designed by the architectural firm of J. Williams Beal & Sons of Boston, the house not only exhibits skilled hand craftsmanship in every aspect of its interior and exterior, but also features a number of technological innovations of the early 20th Century.

Thomas Gustave Plant (1859-1941) made his fortune in the shoe manufacturing industry, retiring as a millionaire at age fifty-one, having sold his business to the United Shoe Machinery Company in 1910.  Newly married in 1913, Plant then focused on the creation of his New Hampshire country estate.  In addition to buying the property known as Ossipee Mountain Park, Plant accumulated land from the Ossipee Mountains all the way to Lake Winnipesaukee, eventually owning 6,300 acres.

After a series of failed investments, Plant attempted, from the mid-1920s through the era of the Great Depression, to sell the mountaintop estate.  However, no buyer was found, and the Plants continued to live at "Lucknow" until Tom Plant’s death in 1941, at which time the property was sold. Plant's desire to maintain the integrity of his mountaintop estate property and the stewardship of the families who owned the property since his time have ensured that "Lucknow" survived in close to its original state and that its magnificent natural setting can be enjoyed by all today.