The mark twain museum and house was the original home of mark twain. Mark Twain was also Samuel Langhorne Clemens; who lived in Hartford in Connecticut United states.
The nineteen room house is built in complete Victorian and gothic style. This house is noted for the major works that twain wrote here during the course of his residency in this Victorian house. He wrote the gilded age, the adventures of tom sawyer, the prince and the pauper, life on the Mississippi and huckleberry fin. He also did A tramp abroad and a Connecticut Yankee in king Arthur’s court.
Later on, mark twains family had to move back to Europe in eighteen ninety one, after they came back here to Connecticut, there was a house that was built for him in Redding, Connecticut. This place was called storm field . This is also the place mark twain had his last breath. This home of his operated later as school, a library and even an apartment building. In the year nineteen sixty two, this place was declared a national historic landmark.
In the tear nineteen seventy four this place has a multi million dollar renovation. Twain; later dedicated this to showcasing his life and his work as well.
Edward Tuckerman potter who was a famous architect in new York designed this house, also when the house was being built, the then news papers even read that the novelty displayed in the architecture of the building, the oddity of its arrangement. This place would be noted for its importance for a long time. The billiards room is where twain wrote most of his novels.
The cost of this house was paid out of the inheritance of Mrs. Clemens.
This place was built on an area of about three and a half acres. This place has seven bedrooms , seven bathrooms. It also had a carriage house and a conservatory that was filled with plants. Windows extend up from turrets that are topped with porches.
The architecture includes a typical steeply pitched roof with asymmetrical windows. The house was rumored to look like a riverboat.
The land that was alongside here had been purchased and the grounds have been re landscaped. Even the driveway has been re drawn. The kitchen here has been rebuilt and made into twice the size its as earlier, the front part of the hall has been enlarged, also , the family has installed brand new plumbing , heating and a burglar alarm.
Twain lost his daughter to meningitis. Mrs. Clemens could no bear to live in the same house once their family had returned from Europe, the house was the sold to Richard Bissell. This man was a president of a local fire insurance company.
Bissell lived in the home with his family until he later rented it out to he kingwood school in nineteen seventeen. Later on in the year nineteen twenty two , this house was sold and subdivided into many apartments.
In nineteen thirty Hartford’s friends came together and formed a mark twain memorial and library commission. These people bought the building right before it would be demolished
These people rented the ground floor to save on money, they also added doors to the building. The building now looks very different from its original design.
The restoration of this place began in the mid nineteenth century. This house was later declared a national and historic landmark in nineteen sixty three.
In the late sixties the house was reopened as a museum. This was done to pay off the mortgage and raise money to fix the property that was deteriorating. The artifacts had to be retrieved, and the retrieval of personal furnishings and possessions took many decades.
In nineteen seventy seven this house won the David E Finlety award for exemplary restoration.
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