Dear Friend of the Frost Place,
I’m writing with some very exciting news. But first, a bit of relevant background: In 1856, a farmer named Ezra G. Hunt built a modest little house on Ridge Road in Franconia. This house became home to Robert Frost and his family from 1915 to 1920. Today, thanks to the partnership of the Frost Place Board, the Town of Franconia, and generous individual supporters, we have been working steadily to restore the home. We now have a plan to address the area that has long been the source of many woes – the crude, wet dirt cellar – which will protect Frost’s former home for the future.
In a February 1919 letter, Mrs. Elinor Frost wrote to daughter Lesley: “We have had a long storm, and it hasn’t stopped snowing yet. It began with rain for a whole day and night, then it turned to snow, and has snowed for two days and nights. The snow is deeper than it has been all winter, I guess, and there is a lot of water in the cellar. Papa is afraid that if the snow melts suddenly, as it is very liable to do, the furnace will be flooded and spoiled. We have never had so much water in the cellar before.”
With financial support from NH Preservation Alliance, we took the necessary first step in this process and hired North Country Architect to complete a historic building assessment on the house. This included creating a roadmap of stewardship recommendations for this important literary landmark. Our highest priority is to finally address the foundation that has remained chronically wet, undermining the entire structure, despite attempts at repair through the years.
Our plan includes raising the entire house above the existing foundation, removing the crumbling, leaking walls and adding several feet of gravel and multiple perforated drainage pipes. Then, a reinforced concrete foundation will be poured on top of it and the house lowered back down onto its forever-dry basement. See the diagram below.
We will soon know if we were selected to receive a matching grant from New Hampshire’s Land Community Heritage Investment Program (LCHIP), a nonprofit that helps to protect and preserve historic buildings like ours. We have our fingers crossed, but the overall cost of this project is daunting at an estimated at $260,000.
This undertaking will be our most ambitious since The Frost Place was founded, and can only be done with your help. Because you value the place of poetry and the arts in today’s fractious world, we’re hoping we can count on you to help preserve Robert Frost’s enormous literary legacy. Your generous donation will help ensure a firm (and dry) foundation for centuries to come.
With gratitude,
Chair, Friends of the Frost Place Board of Trustees
We are lucky to have our own in-house architect and Board President, Don Metz, to manage this project!
Fundraising is underway, and we cannot thank our community of donors enough for their support!