Please enter the next room, using the doorway to the right of the bird prints.
This is Lucknow’s only kitchen, where meals were prepared for Tom and Olive Plant, any guests in residence, and the domestic staff. The kitchen was outfitted to ensure the cook would have any supplies needed for her trade.
This space is dominated by the original range, dated 1912 and manufactured by the Cyrus Carpenter Company of Boston. For its time, this was state-of-the-art cooking equipment, featuring seven burners, two ovens, and two warmers. Coal ashes could be easily disposed of by kitchen staff with the twist of a handle at the side, which flipped the coal tray inside, emptying the ashes into a bin in the basement. No messy ash scooping necessary, keeping the food preparation space much cleaner!
You might have noticed two closed doors in this room. One opens to a staircase, which allowed staff to pass from the kitchen to the basement. The other door opened to an electrified dumbwaiter, which traveled up and down between the kitchen and both levels of the basement below. It likely carried laundry as well as food supplies from the upper basement, and coal to feed the kitchen range from the lower basement. This was undoubtedly a very helpful labor-saving device for the home’s domestic staff.
Another feature of note in this room is the floor. This is an interlocking rubber tile floor manufactured by the New York Belting and Packing Company. Anywhere you see this floor is considered servants’ space. This rubber floor was advertised as noiseless, slip-resistant, and easy to clean. It also added a bit of cushion under the feet of the servants who worked in these areas.
Off of the kitchen, there was a cook’s pantry, furnished with plenty of shelving for storing dry goods, as well as one of the home’s refrigerator units for perishable items. Some of this food came from the Plant farm, situated at the foot of the mountain, and today known as Ledgewood Farm. The Plant farm consisted of two houses, a workshop and shed, and three barns, including one resembling a traditional English sheep barn, which still stands today.
In 1912, when asked about his plans for farming and stock-raising, Tom alleged:
“The simple truth is that I am going into this for the fun of the thing. That is, I want to keep Thomas G. Plant agreeably occupied. He has always been a busy person... Now that he has retired from active business, he must still keep busy at something – for habit is second nature… he intends to seek some diversion in the development of the possibilities of this region…”
However, following an ill-fated attempt at raising sheep himself, Tom hired qualified farm workers from the local community to run the farm on his behalf. Under their supervision, the farm supplied a fair amount of the beef, pork, lamb, poultry, eggs, dairy products, and fresh vegetables that fed the Plants and their domestic staff.
Tom did not always have a good relationship with the community, though. While attempting to purchase land for his Lucknow Estate, he clashed with the Lee family, who had lived in the Ossipee Mountains for generations and had no interest in selling their farmland to a man believed to be buying up property for his own selfish interests. After the Lees refused his offers, Tom reportedly built a crudely decorated “spite fence” to block views from the Lee homestead. The scheme worked, and the Lee family eventually sold their land to him. That parcel later became a major portion of Tom’s private golf course.
