Exit the Attendant’s Room and turn left, then proceed to the large guest bedroom at the end of the hall.
The Green Room, a guest room and the largest of Lucknow’s bedrooms, was likely enjoyed by close friends and family of Mr. and Mrs. Plant, especially those staying for an extended period. This room featured two spacious closets, incredible views of the mountains and lake, and was furnished to provide a comfortable, private space for guests.
As the lady of the house, Olive Plant likely would have been responsible for ensuring each guest room was well-stocked with stationery, an assortment of books, and any toilet items that may have been forgotten at home. The Book of Building and Interior Decorating from 1923 encouraged a good hostess to:
“Have the most necessary articles ready for use and then it saves your habitual guests such a lot of trouble if they know that they will find powder in one box, nicely cut absorbent cotton in another, a hand glass, a box with collar buttons, and of course the small articles like a shoe horn, nail file, buttonhook, and scissors…”
This was especially important considering Lucknow’s fairly remote location. Guests traveling to Lucknow in the 1920s could have traveled by car, though it may have been difficult because thoroughfares in the Lakes Region were still unimproved dirt roads. Traveling by rail was a more common way to get to this part of New Hampshire – there were stations in Wolfeboro, Laconia, and Meredith on the Boston & Maine rail line. Guests arriving by train at Weirs Beach in Laconia could hop on a ferry for a ride across the lake, disembarking at Center Harbor or Melvin Village. Perhaps the Plants would send their chauffeur to pick them up at the wharf, or one could hire a livery for a ride up to Lucknow. Once guests arrived at the estate driveway, they could drive right up to the mansion, stopping, of course, to check in at Brook or Maple Lodge – the property’s two gatehouses.
One individual who made the taxing journey to Lucknow and stayed here in the Green Room was George Perry, a photographer hired by the Plants to capture their estate on film. Perry first documented the estate for an article in Country Life magazine in 1917. Many of those photos were used in real estate advertisements when Tom and Olive Plant attempted to sell their Moultonborough mansion in the 1920s and 1930s. Today, those same photographs help inform our restoration of this home to its original appearance.
