To continue your tour, exit Tom’s Office and follow the corridor on the opposite side of the Entrance Hall. Stop outside the open doorway on the right.
Let’s pause here at Lucknow’s Coat Room, where we can see items similar to those used by Tom and Olive Plant during their years at Lucknow. Tom once said:
“This estate is so unusual, so varied and extensive, so diversified in the uses to which it can be put, that days must be spent at “Lucknow” in order to grasp its full potential value.”
At 6,300 acres, this estate included mountaintops, meadow, lakeshore, shaded valleys, and streams and falls running through rocky gorges. In addition to these natural features, Tom Plant commissioned the construction of a tennis court, an 18-hole golf course, an earthen dam, which formed a small lake for swimming, fishing, and canoeing, and miles of wooded bridle paths and carriage roads for horseback riding and scenic drives.
In the winter, the property offered space for skiing, ice skating, and tobogganing along a bobsled run that dropped 250 feet in elevation in only 500 feet of distance. The owners claimed it was not necessary to go to Lake Placid, Quebec or Switzerland for winter sports, as all could be enjoyed right here at Lucknow.
