I’m not sure who is lining up to purchase this magnificent and historic property, but Knowllwood is a beautiful place, which most of us know as the home of Augusta Petrone. Augusta passed away last month, and the property has been left for her sister, Mitzi Purdue, to put on the market.
Known as Knollwood, 4 Windmill Hill Road in picturesque Dublin, New Hampshire, is set on 104 acres filled with the type of storied background that fills history books. The Georgian-style home was built in 1900 by Franklin MacVeagh, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under President William Howard Taft. According to a document filed with the National Register of Historic Places, President Taft stayed at the 13-bed, 9-and-a-half bath property in the summer of 1910.
The listing claims that beloved author Mark Twain stayed there for six weeks, reading “Huckleberry Finn” to guests in the grand ballroom, which accommodates 125 seated guests. According to the Dublin National Historical Society, Twain spent the summers of 1905 and 1906 in Dublin, New Hampshire.
It’s not that Mitzi or the rest of the family needs the money. She is an heiress to the Perdue Chicken and Sheraton hotel fortunes, but the home is effectively unoccupied and probably worth every penny. If you want to see pics of the inside, assuming you were not privy to a tour when Augusta was with us and living there, check out this Boston.com article, or on the listing page.
Whoever ponies up to make a bid, let’s hope it’s not some woke billionaire. We’ve known Knollwood as a retreat for Republicans of every sort for so long it’d be difficult to picture it in the hands of anyone who opposed Augusta’s commitment to true human liberty.
