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The view of Mount Monadnock driving into 477 East Mountain Road. -
The house at 477 East Mountain Road in Peterborough. -
The great room of the house. -
A granite island in the kitchen. -
The Chinese-style pagoda on the lower lawn. -
The view from the patio, looking toward Skatutakee. -
Looking out the back door of the great room. -
One of the guest rooms. -
A window seat overlooking the vegetable garden. -
The gatekeeper’s cottage at the entrance to the property.
Driving down East Mountain Road in Peterborough, a person may start to feel like he or she is in the North Country. The east side of the road slopes up to the ridge of the Wapacks, between North Pack and Pack Monadnock, while on the west side, gaps in the trees and down-sloping driveways hint at stunning views to the west. One of the views on the road belongs to 477 East Mountain Road, which is currently listed by Sadie Halliday for $3.2 million. The property is being sold in bid format, with bids due Oct. 30. (Please check the listing for updates.)
Arriving at 477 East Mountain Road, an antique gatehouse from the original 1890 farm screens the property from the road. The view is visible once all the way in the driveway, and the next thing someone will notice is what looks like an authentic red wooden Chinese pagoda set among a grove of trees below the house. Acres of lawn sweep across the whole west side of the property, from the house to the tree line. The peak of Monadnock rises over the woods in the southwest, the view extending across the entire horizon from Grand Monadnock to Mount Skatutakee, Mount Thumb, Pitcher Mountain and Mount Baldy, around to Crotched Mountain in the north, with the shoulder of North Pack directly to the northeast. On a clear day, Vermont mountains are visible over the ridge of Skatutakee.
The home includes 340 acres of land in placed in conservation easement with the Society for Protection of New Hampshire Forests. Seventy acres around the house and outbuildings are excluded from the easement.
“This property is very special,” said Sadie Halliday, the listing agent. “There are very, very few properties with a view like this, and there are almost none with nearly 400 acres of land attached, 340 in easement. It’s difficult to even find another property to compare it to, honestly.”
Halliday said she has had buyers from around the country show interest in the estate.
“Historically, we used to see mostly buyers from Massachusetts or maybe New York interested in large properties in this region, but now we are seeing people from out west, the West Coast, Texas. People talk about water when they’re looking at relocating to New Hampshire. They talk about fires. They talk about drought. A lot of homes in the West can’t get insurance now because of fires. It’s pretty interesting,” Halliday said.
The house was lived in year-round by the same family for over 30 years and is being sold by the estate. The house, gardens, lawns, walls and outbuildings are all well maintained.
Along with the antique gatehouse and the pagoda, outbuildings include a barn and several small cottages, and there is a two-car garage in the lower level of the house. The house has seven bedrooms and four baths.
Since the home is built into a hill, it is entered at the ground level, with low wings on either side. The great room has mahogany woodwork, oak beams, a Spanish-inspired ceramic tile floor and a large fireplace set in the south end of the room. Custom woodwork provides storage for entertainment equipment and includes floor-to-ceiling open bookshelves. A wall of windows looks out over the view, and a massive mahogany door in the back of the great room opens onto the patio, which is covered with an awning and connected to a larger brick terrace by granite steps. Outside, the vista from the back patio is breathtaking.
The great room functions as the heart of the home, including space for a formal dining area and sitting area. The north end of the house contains a granite and hardwood kitchen which was updated in 2016, a breakfast nook in the home’s sun-filled tower and a modern butler’s pantry. The master bedroom and bath are adjacent to the kitchen, and the lower level includes a caretaker/in-law apartment with a separate entrance and an eat-in kitchen.
The south end of the house, linked to the north end by the great room as well as through a large walk-through basement storage area, has a vintage feel. A small room which could be used a linen closet has a wall of storage drawers, each with a metal-bracketed label. Some of the rooms at this end have their own sleeping porch, with some overlooking a flat roof deck over a fenced-in vegetable garden and some with their own tiny sitting room or fireplace. Most include built-in shelves or window seats, and some have ceramic tile floors.
“People could really do anything with these spaces—music rooms, studies, sewing rooms,” Halliday said. “It’s just incredibly charming and so full of potential.”
While the house may feel like it’s alone on a mountaintop, the property is just a few minutes drive from Cunningham Pond in one direction and Sand Hill Road in the other direction, with easy access to Monadnock Hospital and the center of Peterborough. The Cranberry Meadow Trail and the Raymond Trail, with access to Miller State Park, are within walking distance.
For information about 477 East Mountain Road, contact Sadie Halliday at hallidayrealestate.com.