This English baroque stunner is the Crane Estate (AKA Castle Hill) and is located just outside Ipswich, Massachusetts. The house encompasses 57,000 square feet and is sited on a 2,100 acre estate. The house was designed by Chicago architect David Adler and the landscape, including the famous grand allee running down to the ocean, was designed by the Olmsted Brothers. For those unfamiliar with the term, an “allee” (pronounced AL-lay) is a design element used in a formal garden structure whereby a long, narrow expanse of lawn is lined by trees focusing the viewers attention on a distant feature such as a statue, a folly, a natural feature or the ocean in this case.

The house was built over three years and completed in 1928 by the son of the founder of the Crane Company famous for plumbing fixtures, Richard Crane, Jr., and his wife, Florence Higginbotham Crane. Richard had taken over as CEO of the company his father had founded back in 1855 and worked hard to achieve the Crane Company mission to “Make America want a better bathroom.” Florence’s father was a co-founder of the Marshall Field department store company in Chicago.

The current house is actually the second one to stand on the site. The Cranes bought the property in 1909 and built an Italian Renaissance-style house. Florence decided she didn’t like the house she called “the Italian fiasco” feeling that the architectural style didn’t fit the setting. She and Richard made a deal that if she still didn’t like it after ten years they would build something more to her liking. Ten years later Florence said she didn’t like the house so it was pulled down and the current house was built on the same foundation. You can catch glimpses of the first house in the sporting casino, located half way down the grand allee, which sports the Italianate design of the original house. The Cranes used the estate as their summer residence and lived most of the year in Chicago where the Crane Company was based.

Richard only got to enjoy the new house for three years before passing away in 1931. Florence lived on at the estate until her death in 1949 at which point it was deeded to The Trustees of Reservations, a non-profit organization which preserves and operates historic sites in Massachusetts. The Crane’s adult children, Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane (no relation to the Vanderbilts) and Florence Crane Jr. had rights as life tenants to continue to live in the guest house seasonally and use the property along with their families. The last resident was Cornelius’ second wife, Minescule ‘Mine’ Sawahara, who lived there until 1974. Both Crane children were adventurous spirits. Florence Jr. married writer William Robinson and they lived part-time in a one room house in Tahiti. Cornelius embarked on voyages to study the anthropological history of the South Pacific.

Fun facts about Cornelius and Florence, Jr.: Cornelius was the adoptive grandfather of SNL co-founder, actor and comedian Chevy Chase, who vacationed at the Crane Estate as a youth. In fact, Chevy Chase’s real name is Cornelius after his grandfather. Florence Jr. married a second time to the son of an exiled Russian aristocrat and became Princess Florence Belosselsky-Belozersky. Grigory Rasputin, the mad monk who helped to bring down the Russian Romanov dynasty was found dead floating in the Neva River in front of the Belosselsky-Belozersky family palace in St. Petersburg in 1916.

The Crane Estate is still owned and operated by The Trustees and the house and grounds are open to the public and are frequently used as a film location and a performing arts venue. Notable film credits include The Witches of Eastwick starring Jack Nicholson, Little Women starring Meryl Streep and Emma Watson and the reality TV series, The Amazing Race. Click here for information on visiting the Crane Estate. You can also stay at the former guest house on the estate – click here for more info on that. A YouTube video featuring some nice drone photography of the house and the grand allee can be seen here.

The Crane Estate has a connection to another beautiful country house covered in this blog. Richard Crane’s nephew, also named Richard Crane, bought and lived at the Westover Plantation in Virginia (click here).