The Morton Freeman Plant Hunting Lodge is the centerpiece of a hunting retreat at 56 Stone Ranch Road in
East Lyme
East Lyme is a town in New London County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 18,693 at the 2020 census. The villages of Niantic and Flanders are located in the town.
Geography
East Lyme is located in southern New London County, west ...
,
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
. It is a large two-story Bungalow style house, designed by Dudley St. Clair Donnelly and built in 1908 by financier
Morton Freeman Plant Morton Freeman Plant (August 18, 1852, Branford, Connecticut – November 4, 1918, New York City) was a United States financier.
Biography
Morton Freeman Plant was the son of Henry Bradley and Ellen Elizabeth (Blackstone) Plant. His father was a pi ...
, and is one of the only early 20th-century purpose-built hunting lodges in the state. It was the heart of a large private game preserve that Plant stocked with game birds. The property, now reduced to , is surrounded by town conservation land and a state military reservation.
The property was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
on December 12, 1988.
Description and history
The Morton Freeman Plant Hunting Lodge is located in an isolated rural setting in western East Lyme. The lodge stands on 105 acres of land, nearly completely surrounded by town conservation land and a state National Guard training center, all land that was once historically associated with the lodge. There are two buildings on the lodge grounds, which are entirely wooded except for the clearing in which they stand, and Stone Ranch Road, which provides access. The lodge is a 1-1/2 story frame structure with a broad hip roof that creates an overhanging porch in the front, supported by stone piers. Dormers pierce three of the roof faces, and a single-story service ell extends to the rear of the main block. The interior of the building retains original finishes, including two concrete fireplaces built to resemble those found in 16th-century European manor houses.
[
Morton Freeman Plant's father, Henry Plant, made the family fortune by developing railroads in ]Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
. He took over his father's business in 1899. Born and raised in southeastern Connecticut, Plant began purchasing land in East Lyme and Lyme as a hunting retreat in 1907, which grew to about 2400 acres by 1914. The lodge was built in 1908 to a design by Dudley St. Clair Donnelly, a regionally prominent architect who executed a number of commissions for Plant. Plant died in the 1918 influenza pandemic
The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...
, and the property was broken up by his heirs.[
]
See also
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References
{{National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places in New London County, Connecticut
Buildings and structures completed in 1908
East Lyme, Connecticut
Buildings and structures in New London County, Connecticut
1908 establishments in Connecticut