Nestledown Farm
The original, elaborate Nestledown estate, which was severely damaged by fire on April 25, 1923. The main house and barn burned down, but another house and barn were saved by the late-arriving Lakeport Fire department, who had gotten stuck in the mud on White Oaks Road.
At the top of the following engraving, the house on the left and the barn on the right were the victims of the 1923 fire and burned down. At the bottom of the engraving, the barn on the left and the house on the right were saved. The barn was later converted to hotel rooms, as seen in the Plantation house photos below, and the house became the hotel office and entrance.
The Plantation House
In early 1940, Lillian Dana Carroll, the owner of the Carroll Arms, the former Story’s Tavern hotel in Weirs Beach, had purchased Nestledown and changed its name to the Plantation House. A July, 1940 Citizen article noted that the theme of the hotel would be “a typical farm of the Old South…with colored chefs, waitresses, and bellhops.” Below, a late 1940’s brochure for the Plantation House, a “Modern Summer Resort Hotel”, showing the remaining buildings of the former Nestledown estate. They too burned down, on October 7, 1954. Today there are condominiums and houses spread throughout the 200 acres of the former estate. In 1974, a developer built the “Plantation Beach” subdivision on the lake side of Route 11B, and the “Plantation Hill” subdivision on the inland side. The estate’s valuable lake front property, at one time known as Pendleton Beach, is now the site of several elaborate private homes.
An advertisement for the Plantation House from the Lakes Region Association’s 1949 Where To guidebook. The manager mentioned in the ad, Jack Dana, was owner Lillian Dana Carroll’s son.
Plantation House postcard
Plantation House photo, July, 1954
Pendleton Beach
This aerial view, from the cover of a 1960s Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce brochure, shows the location of Pendleton beach, tucked into an arc along the curving shoreline.
A stereoview of men fishing off a beach, from W.L. Wilder, one of the very earliest Laconia photographers. Could this be Pendleton Beach?
