Scoville Estate

This beautiful French Norman farmhouse-style country house is the Scoville Estate.  It is located in Taconic near Salisbury, Connecticut in the Litchfield Hills.  The house is 12,400 square feet and sits on a 100 acre estate with fine views of the surrounding hills.  Meryl Streep is a next door neighbor. It is not the largest, most expensive or plushest country estate in North America but IMO is one of the coolest.

The Scoville family has a history around Taconic going back to the 19^th century when a local farmer named Samuel Scoville began mining high quality iron ore on his property.  His sons, Jonathan and Nathaniel, moved to Buffalo, NY and expanded the business and the family fortune by manufacturing iron railroad car wheels.  Nathaniel had two sons, Robert and Herbert, who moved back to Taconic with their mother, bought more land to add to the family estate and constructed a manor house in 1894.  This house burned in 1915 but several structures associated with the house such as the carriage house and a power mill remain to this day. These structures have, in turn, been converted into residences.  

Herbert Scoville and his wife, Orlena, constructed the French Norman house situated to the west of the original manor house in 1927.  It was designed by Joseph Leland of Boston.  Orlena lived until 1967 and the house was, at some point, taken over by her son, Herbert Jr. and his wife, Ann.    Herbert Jr. was a trained scientist who worked at the CIA for many years and then the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.  He was a tireless proponent of nuclear disarmament and dedicated the latter part of his life to this cause.  His wife, Ann, was a noted sculptor and many of her pieces decorated the grounds of their Connecticut estate (which they usually referred to as the “Hill House”).  

Herbert Jr. died in 1985 and after Ann passed away in 2014, the heirs made the decision to sell the estate and it sold for $5.8 million in 2017. Thus ended over 150 years of family ownership.   The new owners are a couple that are associated with an investment firm focusing on sustainable technologies in the energy, water and waste management areas. Scoville Estate continues to serve as a private home and is not open to the public.

Just outside the nearby town of Salisbury is another country estate covered in this blog, Twin Maples – click here.