The Frost Place

Frost came to Franconia at a turning point. He had just returned from a stay in England, where his first books had finally won him notice, and he wanted a New Hampshire farm again, both to write and to keep a foothold in the rural life that fed his poems. He found this one on Ridge Road and bought it from a local farmer, and he and his family lived here from 1915 until about 1920, with the mountains always in view from the porch.

These were fertile years. Frost was moving into full command of his voice, and the plain talk, stone walls, woods, and weather of northern New Hampshire run straight through the work of this period. Even after the family moved on he kept coming back to the region in summers, drawn to the same country. The house on Ridge Road is where a great deal of that New England poetry took root.

The best-loved thing at The Frost Place is not inside the house at all. A short loop trail, only about a quarter mile, winds through the woods behind the farmhouse, and along it Frost's poems are mounted on plaques where you come upon them one at a time. You read a poem about birches while standing among birches, a poem about a wall beside an actual tumbledown stone wall. It turns reading into a walk and roots the words in the exact landscape that shaped them.

The trail, and the view from the front porch across to the Franconia Range, are open to anyone, free, all year round, even in the seasons when the farmhouse itself is shut. That is the quiet gift of the place: you can pull off Ridge Road on a bright fall afternoon, walk the loop, read a few poems in the woods, and stand where Frost stood looking at the mountains, without needing anything to be open.

The farmhouse museum, open in the warmer months, keeps the intimacy of a home rather than the hush of a gallery. Rooms hold first editions, letters, photographs, and personal belongings, and because the house is small and plain, it is easy to imagine the family actually living here through the long mountain winters.

But The Frost Place is more than a museum. Each year it awards a summer residency to a promising poet, who lives and writes in the farmhouse just as Frost did, and it hosts a free summer reading series and poetry programs that draw well-known writers to this remote corner of New Hampshire. Frost's own house has become a place where new poems are still being made, which is about the finest tribute a poet's home could ask for.

The Frost Place is on Ridge Road on the west side of Franconia, an easy drive from the village and just minutes from Franconia Notch. The poetry trail and the porch view are free and open year round, while the farmhouse museum keeps a seasonal schedule, so check ahead if going inside matters to your visit.

It is a small, unhurried stop, an hour or so to walk the loop, read the poems, and take in the mountains, and it pairs perfectly with the big natural wonders just down the road in Franconia Notch. Come in autumn if you can, when the birches turn gold and the poems on the trail seem to describe exactly what is in front of you.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.