Charles Platt House

Site: N08-60
Municipality: Cornish, NH
Location: Platt Road
Site Type: House.

Platt's first project in Cornish was to construct his own house and garden. He purchased land from Chester Pike south and adjacent to Henry O. Walker's property. There he built a house with a studio and gardens that he worked on and added to from 1890 until 1912. Just as Rose Nichols sought to keep an old apple tree as a central focus to her garden, so Platt chose to retain one on his house site, "the remnant of a former orchard.... The piazza... has been designed not in relation to the house itself, but rather as the crowning feature of the lateral pathway leading down through the several levels of the garden. The garden is not, however, the only thing worth seeing from the piazza. The rich and tender beauty of the whole valley lies stretched out before the observer." Thus, contrary to what was then in vogue, Platt did not choose his site in order to highlight a view of Mount Ascutney. As for the house, its earliest section had five central bays with a loggia on the west side; a wing with a parlor was not added until 1904.
(Source 156:327)