Chronicle is at the Castle in the Clouds.

[Lakesrider]

There at the LuckNow for the week I guess.....:D

[Sal]

Did the Castle gatekeeper charge each person in the crew $5.00 for the priveledge of driving up the scenic road, as they have resorted to doing to those who want to have lunch at the beautiful Carriage House?
Or did they tell the crew to go up the "Springs" road (for free)?

[Lakepilot]

Did the Castle gatekeeper charge each person in the crew $5.00 for the priveledge of driving up the scenic road, as they have resorted to doing to those who want to have lunch at the beautiful Carriage House?
Or did they tell the crew to go up the "Springs" road (for free)?

We were up there twice, earlier in the summer and said we were going to the restaurant and there was no charge for the road. Is this new?

[Sal]

Yup. As of two weeks ago. Lady at the gate said there would be a $5 charge for EACH person in the car (6 of us). We turned around and went up the Springs Rd..

[BroadHopper]

LRCT lost major supporters when they shut down a sowmobile corrider through the property. They did it without notifying the state or the club.

[baja-mama]

Is this road marked? How do you find it?

[wifi]

Is this road marked? How do you find it?


Its formally called "Ossipee Park Rd", its about a mile from 109/171 junction, obvously on the left. Its the one the tractor trailers use to bring the water down.

[fatlazyless]

Maybe the new five dollar charge is in response to the Moultonborough select board's review of the Castle's property tax exempt status over the past few months, as reported in the local newspaper, The Meredith News. Do not know what the outcome was; a new property tax semi-annual bill or a continuation of their exempt status?

The select board was raising concern about the tax exempt status especially considering that Moultonborough fire and ambulance had been making some safety calls for fire dept-safety services like responding to false fire alarms or a person in medical distress up at the castle.

Or, something like that?

[tis]

This will probably open a huge can of worms. But I for one am getting sick of everyone and his brother being able to claim tax exempt status. So many towns are having more and more tax exempt properties.

[Rattlesnake Gal]

Castle in the Clouds on NH Chronicle (http://www.wmur.com/chroniclevideo/25148757/index.html)

[beachgal]

My family and I went up there for the first time this past Labor Day weekend....I couldn't believe how beautiful the views were from the restaurants' patio!!
When we got up to the castle for the tour, I was amazed at the architecture and the furniture from that time!!
I was just wondering if anyone else felt the "presence" of spirits while walking from room to room. I know I did!! I want to go up there in a few weeks to check out the foliage and have a few drinks!:)

[GTO]

My family and I went up there for the first time this past Labor Day weekend....I couldn't believe how beautiful the views were from the restaurants' patio!!
When we got up to the castle for the tour, I was amazed at the architecture and the furniture from that time!!
I was just wondering if anyone else felt the "presence" of spirits while walking from room to room. I know I did!! I want to go up there in a few weeks to check out the foliage and have a few drinks!:)

I saw in one of their ads recently that they have horse back riding again. Has anyone gone and know the cost?

[Greene's Basin Girl]

My family and I went up there for the first time this past Labor Day weekend....I couldn't believe how beautiful the views were from the restaurants' patio!!
When we got up to the castle for the tour, I was amazed at the architecture and the furniture from that time!!
I was just wondering if anyone else felt the "presence" of spirits while walking from room to room. I know I did!! I want to go up there in a few weeks to check out the foliage and have a few drinks!:) I been touring the castle for over 40 years and I have never felt that there were spirits in the room.

[Lakesrider]

40 Years?
WOW GBG...Do ever get to sleep? Did you ever think that maybe YOU are one of the spirits....:D:laugh::D

[fatlazyless]

You probably experienced the spirit of Thomas Plante, or Tommie, his new name once he became a pauper. Thomas Plante, a Boston shoe manufactorer finished building the Lucknow estate in about 1914, and about 7-8 years later he lost all his fortune, having invested totally in Russian, 14%/year war bonds, when the Czar Nicholas was defeated by the Bolshevics.

Tommy Plante spent the last couple years of his life working in the Castle kitchen, and died a sick and penniless pauper.

Probably, you heard his ghost crying: "I miss my money....I miss my money....I miss my money...." as he was peeling onions.:rolleye1:

[Rattlesnake Gal]

I was just wondering if anyone else felt the "presence" of spirits while walking from room to room. I know I did!

What out of this world did you wake up?!!! :eek:

Green's Basin Girl, when is the last time you visited? Perhaps some cleaning, renovations or moving something at the castle awakened this spirit.

[Rattlesnake Gal]

http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/data/531/medium/20scanweelahka.jpg
From the McDude Gallery (http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/showgallery.php?ppuser=20&cat=500)

Weelahka Hall in the Ossipee Mountains housed many of the workers who constructed Thomas Plant's "Lucknow" estate or Castle in the Clouds. When construction was completed, Plant relentlessly attempted to buy all of the land between the castle and the lake. When the owners of Weelahka refused Plant had his workmen build a 'spite wall' between Weelahka and the lake obstructing their view and convincing them to sell the property.
I was unsure of my source for the above info so I wrote to dcr of photopost who I know does a lot of work at the Castle. Here is what he had to say, "The spite fence was one of the least pleasant tactics Tom Plant employed as he built his 6300 acre estate in the Ossipee Mt area. He owned from the high ridge of the Ossipees all the way down to the shores of Winnipesaukee ( close to 5 mi from mountaintop to lake, with more than a mile of lake front property on which he eventually built the Bald Peak Colony Club). One newspaper story called that a bigger estate than some owned by the lords and ladies of England - the paper christened Plant the Earl of Ossipee.

His confrontation leading to the spite fence was with the Lee family, whose ancestors were the first settlers up high on the mountainside meadow. The Lees had been there since a little before the 1790's, so you might expect that they had some attachment to the land. Plant offered them a price, but they countered with a price of their own which Plant wouldn't initially meet - and thus the fray was joined. Eventually Plant had to concede to their price, in spite of the spite fence. The Lees and the mountainside farming community that grew up around them, of which they were the acknowledged patriarchs, had a rich and interesting history of its own, with people like Whittier, Lucy Larcom and Robert Frost spending summers there in the late 1800's - not to mention the interesting exploits of some of the mountain people themselves.
The Lees had very good relations with the previous land baron, B F Shaw, the developer of Ossipee Mountain Park and the creator of Weelahka Hall, and made part of their living providing the hotel he built with fresh farm produce. By the time of the spite fence, however, Shaw was dead and the family had sold the business. Plant owned Weelakha Hall during the spite fence controversy, and he used it to house some of the around 1000 workers he had on the property for the couple of years it took to build the "castle" (he never called it that) and the system of carriage roads, stables, gate houses, etc that were part of his grand design. After the construction was complete, he razed the Hall and every other old building in the immediate vicinity so that he could build himself a private 9-hole golf course.

http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/data/15014/medium/176Thomas_Plant_Spite_Fence.jpg
From the Rattlesnake Gal Gallery (http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/showgallery.php?ppuser=176&cat=500)

Following is the relevant paragraph from the small history of the Lee Settlement passed on to me by DCR:

Eventually, Mr. Plant acquired all the property around the Park (Ossipee Park, which he bought in 1911) except the Lee homestead, which included 150 acres. The Lees were not interested in selling at his offered price as they had been offered $500 more by a relative. Mr. Plant was so disgruntled by his being unable to purchase this last hold on the mountain community that he put up a 20 ft spite fence several hundred feet in length which blocked the view of the lake from the Lee's home.Buildings (part of the Weelahka Hall complex of Ossipee Park) within sight were splashed with black paint (and painted with "hideous figures" of several kinds). This, and other things (other things could have included a death in the family - I don't know about that), finally made the Lees sell, at their price, the property they had owned since 1748. They moved to Moultonboro Falls on the Sheridan Road November 1, 1913. The house they moved to is where Martha Oliver now lives. William Henry Horne ( who had an interesting business relationship with Robert Frost in the summer of 1895 at Ossipee Park - Frost, a very young man then, spent the summer there in Horne's dipalidated house; Horne tended to live with the Lees more than at home) led the cow from the mountain home to the new home at the falls (over 6 mi.). He was 80 years old, having been born January 18, 1833. - Comments in parenthesis are DCR's.

Thank you DCR for all of your informative posts!

The Mountain People of Moultonboro can be read at the Moultonboro public library, where there is a lot of information about the Lee community and the significant outgrowths that developed from it, namely Ossipee Park and the Plant estate. It can also be purchased at the Moultonboro General Store (an interesting place to visit in itself for history buffs), which is right across the street from the library.

For those of you who do not frequent Winnipesaukee.com's PhotoPost Gallery (http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/index.php),
DCR (http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/showgallery.php?ppuser=199&cat=500) is a prolific poster that shares so many pictures that includes history and information from his extensive travels in the Lakes Region.

[Natt]

This information on Thomas Plante is substantially incorrect and the stuff of urban legends. I've known several former employees of Mr. Plante's, all long gone, each who had wonderful stories of his thoughtfulness and generosity. A fine example is the Plante Memorial Home, in his home town of Bath, Maine, which he built and endowed for less fortunate elders. And the Plante Home remains a functioning and financially viable entity to this day. For an objective and factual reading of his life I would recommend Barry Rodrigue's "Thomas Plante-The Making of a Franco-American Entrepreneur". It can be found at the Moultonborough Library. It's a shame to see such a good man besmirched by false history.