Dickinson Estate Historic District
Description and history
The former Dickinson Estate is located in rural northern Brattleboro, near its border with Dummerston, on the west side of Kipling Road. The World Learning campus occupies more than 160 acres (65 ha) of a large farm property that was known in the 19th century as the Bliss Farm. In 1899 the Bliss Farm was purchased by Frederick and Harriet Dickinson; he was a prominent local businessman, she the daughter of a New York City millionaire. The farm became the core of a gentleman's farm country estate that reached 500 acres (200 ha) at its greatest extent. The Dickinsons built a 20-room Colonial Revival mansion house (to a design by Belgian architect Maurice Fornachon), and constructed a number of agricultural outbuildings to support farm operations on the property, demolishing most of the older buildings on the farm in the process. The only older building to survive on the property is an 1860s Greek Revival cottage, in which the Kiplings gave birth to their daughter while construction of nearby Naulakha was underway.
The central portion of the Dickinson estate was purchased in 1937 by Thomas Bibby, who continued to operate the farm. His widow remarried, to Henry Persons, a principal in the Experiment in International Living, now World Learning. That organization bought a subset of the estate (excluding the main complex of farm buildings) in 1962, and gradually expanded its holdings to more than 160 acres (65 ha).
The property is historically significant as having one of the few surviving country estate houses left in Brattleboro, and for its remarkably well-preserved early-20th century farmyard, which was also designed by the architect Fornachon. The elaborate and deliberate arrangement of the buildings in the farm complex is particularly unique in the state.
See also
References
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ "NRHP nomination for Dickinson Estate Historic District". National Park Service. Retrieved November 18, 2015.
External links
- Media related to Dickinson Estate Historic District at Wikimedia Commons