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Naulakha, also known as the Rudyard Kipling House, is a historic Shingle Style house on Kipling Road in
Stylistically the house is an architecturally cross-cultural and distinctive building, resembling in part a South Asian Indian bungalow, albeit executed in the then-fashionable American Shingle style. The property and house were laid out by Kipling to maximize the family's privacy. Although it has extensive views to the Connecticut River and Mount Monadnock to the east, the house as built had only a single entrance and was only one room deep, with a hallway running along the rear. The house is approached by a tree-lined drive from an iron gate set between fieldstone pillars whose construction Kipling watched. The property includes a number of outbuildings and facilities built by the Kiplings, including a greenhouse, carriage barn, and tennis court. and
The Kiplings, while on their honeymoon in 1892, visited Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling's parents in nearby Brattleboro, Vermont, Brattleboro. Taken by the countryside, the couple purchased this property from Caroline's brother, and had the house built on it in 1893 to a design by Henry Rutgers Marshall, with significant input from Kipling. In 1894, Arthur Conan Doyle visited Kipling at Naulakha, where the two played golf together.Daniel Stashower, Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle (Henry Holt & Co. 1999), pages 185-186. The Kiplings lived here until 1896, when a dispute with a hot-tempered neighbor (his brother-in-law Beatty Balestier) led to court proceedings and an avalanche of unwelcome publicity. The Kiplings attempted to return in 1899, but illness on the sea crossing from England frustrated the plan. The property was owned for much of the 20th century by members of the Holbrook family, who in 1992 sold it to the
The Landmark Trust – Naulakha
* [http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_naulpix.htm The Kipling Society - Visit to Naulakha in 2014. Photos and descriptions.]
Rare Book of the Month: From the Snows of Vermont Comes the "Jungle Book"
A blog post from the Library of Congress {{National Historic Landmarks in Vermont National Historic Landmarks in Vermont Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Vermont Houses completed in 1892 Shingle Style houses Houses in Windham County, Vermont National Register of Historic Places in Windham County, Vermont Shingle Style architecture in Vermont
Dummerston, Vermont
Dummerston is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,865 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It is home to the longest covered bridge still in use in Vermont. Its borders include three main villages: Dum ...
, a few miles outside Brattleboro
Brattleboro (), originally Brattleborough, is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The most populous municipality abutting Vermont's eastern border with New Hampshire, which is the Connecticut River, Brattleboro is located about nor ...
. The house was designated a National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
in 1993 for its association with the author Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
...
(1865–1936), who had it built in 1893 and made it his home until 1896. It is in this house that Kipling wrote ''Captains Courageous
''Captains Courageous: A Story of the Grand Banks'' is an 1897 novel by Rudyard Kipling that follows the adventures of fifteen-year-old Harvey Cheyne Jr., the spoiled son of a railroad tycoon, after he is saved from drowning by a Portuguese f ...
'', ''The Jungle Book
''The Jungle Book'' (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, ...
'', ''The Day's Work
''The Day's Work'' is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in 1898. There are no poems included between the different stories in ''The Day's Work'', as there are in many other of Kipling's collections.
Conte ...
'', and '' The Seven Seas'', and did work on ''Kim
Kim or KIM may refer to:
Names
* Kim (given name)
* Kim (surname)
** Kim (Korean surname)
*** Kim family (disambiguation), several dynasties
**** Kim family (North Korea), the rulers of North Korea since Kim Il-sung in 1948
** Kim, Vietnamese f ...
'' and '' The Just So Stories''. Kipling named the house after the Naulakha Pavilion
The Naulakha Pavilion () is a white marble personal chamber with a curvilinear roof, located beside the Sheesh Mahal courtyard, in the northern section of the Lahore Fort in Lahore, Pakistan. The monument is one of the 21 monuments situated wi ...
, situated inside Lahore Fort
The Lahore Fort ( ur, , lit=Royal Fort, translit=Shāhī Qilā, label=Punjabi language, Punjabi and Urdu) is a citadel in the city of Lahore, Pakistan. The fortress is located at the northern end of Walled City of Lahore, walled city Lahore, a ...
. The house is now owned by the Landmark Trust
The Landmark Trust is a British building conservation charity, founded in 1965 by Sir John and Lady Smith, that rescues buildings of historic interest or architectural merit and then makes them available for holiday rental. The Trust's headqua ...
, and is available for rent.
Name
"Kipling named Naulakha after the book he wrote with Wolcott Balestier, his good friend and Mrs. Kipling's brother, about a precious Indian jewel, and it is filled with a trove of their possessions." Etymologically Naulakha means nine lakhs or nine hundred thousand being the amount of rupees incurred for the cost of construction of the building. The Mughal architecture of the monument had inspired him during his earlier stay (between 1882 and 1887) in Lahore.Description
Kipling himself described the building and its construction in his autobiography, ''Something of Myself'':
Stylistically the house is an architecturally cross-cultural and distinctive building, resembling in part a South Asian Indian bungalow, albeit executed in the then-fashionable American Shingle style. The property and house were laid out by Kipling to maximize the family's privacy. Although it has extensive views to the Connecticut River and Mount Monadnock to the east, the house as built had only a single entrance and was only one room deep, with a hallway running along the rear. The house is approached by a tree-lined drive from an iron gate set between fieldstone pillars whose construction Kipling watched. The property includes a number of outbuildings and facilities built by the Kiplings, including a greenhouse, carriage barn, and tennis court. and
The Kiplings, while on their honeymoon in 1892, visited Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling's parents in nearby Brattleboro, Vermont, Brattleboro. Taken by the countryside, the couple purchased this property from Caroline's brother, and had the house built on it in 1893 to a design by Henry Rutgers Marshall, with significant input from Kipling. In 1894, Arthur Conan Doyle visited Kipling at Naulakha, where the two played golf together.Daniel Stashower, Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle (Henry Holt & Co. 1999), pages 185-186. The Kiplings lived here until 1896, when a dispute with a hot-tempered neighbor (his brother-in-law Beatty Balestier) led to court proceedings and an avalanche of unwelcome publicity. The Kiplings attempted to return in 1899, but illness on the sea crossing from England frustrated the plan. The property was owned for much of the 20th century by members of the Holbrook family, who in 1992 sold it to the Landmark Trust
The Landmark Trust is a British building conservation charity, founded in 1965 by Sir John and Lady Smith, that rescues buildings of historic interest or architectural merit and then makes them available for holiday rental. The Trust's headqua ...
, a preservation organization that restores historic properties and makes them available to the public. The property has largely been restored to its appearance as of the Kiplings’ ownership, and includes artifacts belonging to the family.
The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and was declared a National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
in 1993.
See also
*List of National Historic Landmarks in Vermont *National Register of Historic Places listings in Windham County, VermontReferences
External links
The Landmark Trust – Naulakha
* [http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_naulpix.htm The Kipling Society - Visit to Naulakha in 2014. Photos and descriptions.]
Rare Book of the Month: From the Snows of Vermont Comes the "Jungle Book"
A blog post from the Library of Congress {{National Historic Landmarks in Vermont National Historic Landmarks in Vermont Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Vermont Houses completed in 1892 Shingle Style houses Houses in Windham County, Vermont National Register of Historic Places in Windham County, Vermont Shingle Style architecture in Vermont