Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park
139 Saint Gaudens Road
Cornish, NH
The country home, working studios, and formal gardens of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the sculptor who defined an era in American art, set on a hillside above the Connecticut River.
Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park preserves the country place of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, widely regarded as the greatest American sculptor of the Gilded Age, the artist behind the Shaw Memorial in Boston, the standing Lincoln in Chicago, and coins so beautiful they are still prized today. Here on a hillside in Cornish are his home, called Aspet, his working studios, and the formal gardens he laid out with a designer's eye.
The place is more than one man's estate. Saint-Gaudens drew a whole circle of painters, sculptors, writers, and architects to these hills, forming the Cornish Art Colony, one of the most important artists' communities in America around the turn of the twentieth century. It is also the only site in the entire National Park System located in New Hampshire, which makes a visit here doubly worthwhile.
What Guests Love
- Standing among the sculptor's own casts of his most famous monuments
- Formal gardens and hedged garden rooms framing the home and studios
- The view across the Connecticut valley to Mount Ascutney that drew the artists here
- Being the only National Park Service site in New Hampshire
Worth Knowing
- The buildings and grounds are seasonal, with the fullest access in the warmer months
- Plan time to walk both the gardens and the surrounding trails, not just the studios
- Summer brings a series of Sunday concerts on the grounds
- It is the only unit of the National Park System in New Hampshire, so it can draw art travelers from afar
Details
Cornish, NH
Learn about Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park
The sculptor of an era
Augustus Saint-Gaudens rose from a modest immigrant background, apprenticed as a cameo cutter, and trained in Paris and Rome before becoming the leading American sculptor of his generation. His public monuments shaped how the nation pictured its heroes and its history, from the Robert Gould Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial in Boston to the Standing Lincoln in Chicago and the Adams Memorial in Washington.
He also designed coinage of extraordinary beauty, including the twenty-dollar gold double eagle long considered among the finest coins the country ever produced. At the park, visitors can see the artist's own bronze casts and reductions of these works displayed in and around the studios, a chance to stand face to face with monuments most people know only from afar.
Aspet, the studios, and the gardens
Saint-Gaudens first came to Cornish in 1885, renting and then buying an old brick house he named Aspet after his father's birthplace in France. He remade the property over the years, adding studios where he and his assistants worked and shaping the grounds into a series of formal gardens, terraces, and hedged outdoor rooms that frame long views of the landscape.
The gardens are as much a part of the experience as the sculpture. Saint-Gaudens treated the whole estate as a composition, with allees, pools, and plantings arranged to lead the eye toward Mount Ascutney across the river. Walking from the house through the studios and out into the gardens, you move through the world exactly as the artist arranged it.
The Cornish Art Colony
Where Saint-Gaudens settled, others followed. Over the decades around 1900 the hills of Cornish filled with painters, sculptors, architects, writers, and gardeners drawn by the scenery, the light, and one another's company, forming what became known as the Cornish Art Colony. Figures such as the painter Maxfield Parrish and many others worked in the area, and the colony helped make this quiet corner of New Hampshire a center of American art.
The colonists shared a love of the classical, of gardens, and of the view toward Mount Ascutney, and they staged elaborate outdoor pageants and gatherings. The park preserves the anchor of that world, and its summer concert series and programs carry on the tradition of art and music on the grounds.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Cornish
Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge
About 5 miles, a 12 minute drive
One of the longest covered bridges in the country, spanning the Connecticut River between New Hampshire and Vermont.
Mount Ascutney
Across the river in Vermont
The isolated peak that dominates the valley view and inspired the Cornish artists, with a summit road and trails on the Vermont side.
Hanover and Dartmouth College
About 20 miles, a 30 minute drive
A classic New England college town with the Hood Museum of Art and a lively main street.