Stormfield

Clemens' house, "Stormfield", in Redding, Connecticut

Stormfield was the mansion built in Redding, Connecticut for author Samuel Clemens, best known as Mark Twain, who lived there from 1908 until his death in 1910. Clemens derived the property's name from the short story "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven." The building was destroyed in a 1923 fire, with a smaller replica built at the same site the following year.

Conception, architecture and construction

After meeting biographer Albert Bigelow Paine in 1906 while living in New York City, Clemens decided to purchase 195 acres of land in Redding where Paine lived, purchasing his first parcel there March 24, 1906, and buying additional acreage in May and September that year.

Clemens hired as architect John Mead Howells of Howells & Stokes, stipulating the house be built in the style of a Tuscan villa after having spent time in La Quercia outside Florence, Italy. Construction commenced in 1907; the project was nearly abandoned later that year due to cost and Clemens' misgivings about Redding's relative isolation, but Howells convinced Clemens he would suffer a financial loss on work already underway. The house was completed in June 1908, built on elevated land known at the time as Birch Spray Hill on the west bank of the Saugatuck River.

The exterior of the house featured a gray stucco finish and green-colored roof, with the foundation measuring 70 feet by 40 feet, flanked by wings measuring 20 feet by 18 feet. Howells designed the interior ground floor to include a central dining room, opening onto garden terraces and a fountain. In one wing was a drawing room opening onto an outdoor seating area; the other wing contained a billiards room decorated with caricatures of Clemens. The hand-carved mantel for the billiards room fireplace was a gift from the Hawaiian Islands. Twain had purchased a second, ornate mantel from Ayton Castle in Scotland that was installed in the living room; that mantel was damaged in the fire but restored, and is located today at the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, where Clemens lived from 1874 to 1891.

On June 18, 1908, Clemens, Paine and daughter Louise Paine were met at the West Redding train station by residents who accompanied them to the new house. It was the first time Clemens had seen the house in person. Dan Beard, a nearby Redding resident whose illustrations appeared in several Mark Twain books, helped set off fireworks to commemorate Clemens' arrival, describing a scene in which "sticks from the rockets fell in the pastures and sent the cattle and horses tearing around the fields."

Clemens' life and death at Stormfield

Originally dubbing the villa "Autobiography house" and then "Innocence at Home" in reference to his novel The Innocents at Home, Clemens changed the name to Stormfield that autumn following a storm there; also referencing the use of profits from "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" to finance the construction.

In September, 1908, two burglars broke into the house, stole silver and exchanged shots with a deputy sheriff who was wounded. The burglars were later apprehended aboard a train in Bethel, Connecticut and subsequently sentenced to prison. Clemens briefly met the men while they were in custody and subsequently posted a note on the front door of Stormfield addressed "To the next Burglar," advising them the house contained "nothing but plated ware" which they could find "in that brass thing" by a basket of kittens; to make no noise to disturb the family; and to leave the kittens. Clemens also added an entry in his guest book to note the burglars' arrival "without permission."

In his leisure time at Stormfield, Clemens enjoyed playing billiards and the card game hearts, reading, writing, smoking, and strolling the grounds.

Clemens hosted numerous, renowned visitors at Stormfield, including Thomas Edison who filmed what is believed to be the only surviving motion picture of Clemens, showing him walking the grounds of Stormfield; Helen Keller who lived in nearby Easton, Connecticut; and muckraker journalist Ida Tarbell, also an Easton resident. After Clemens decided to endow the creation of a library in Redding, he began charging visitors one dollar to raise funds for the project.

Snapshot taken at the marriage of Clara Clemens and Ossip Gabrilowitsch (from left to right: Samuel Clemens, Jervis Langdon, Jean Clemens, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Clara Clemens, Rev. Dr. Joseph Twichell)

As a host, Clemens was "dignified, courteous, and prodigal in his hospitality," Beard wrote, "possessing all of the admirable characteristics of the best type of the old-fashioned Southern gentleman."

In 1909, Clemens purchased a nearby farm as a home for daughter Jean, called Jean's Farm, who would serve as his secretary after the dismissal of Isabel Lyon. On October 6, 1909, Clara Clemens married the pianist Ossip Gabrilowitsch, with the ceremony held on the grounds of Stormfield.

In July 1909, Clemens regained ownership of a farmhouse on the property he called the "Lobster Pot," which he had given in 1907 to secretary, household manager and social companion Isabel Lyon as a Christmas present that year, only to dismiss her in 1909. The original, saltbox-design house was destroyed in 1953 in a fire, with a new house subsequently built as a replacement.

On December 24, 1909, Clemens' youngest daughter Jean Clemens died at Stormfield, with the cause of death believed to have been a heart attack during an epileptic seizure while taking a bath. Clemens subsequently wrote “The Death of Jean”, believed to be the last work he ever completed.

Suffering from a heart ailment in the spring of 1910, Samuel Clemens sought to recuperate in Bermuda but returned to Stormfield April 12, 1910. He died April 21, 1910.

Legacy

Officials in Connecticut and New York estimated the value of Twain's estate at $471,000 ($11.9 million today). In 1910, the Gabrilowitsch's listed Stormfield for sale for $50,000; between 1910 and 1923, Clemens' estate sold off several pieces of land.

On August 19, 1910, Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch gave birth at Stormfield to daughter Nina, who would be Samuel Clemens' last known descendant at her death in 1966.

In 1918, Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch offered the use of Stormfield as a convalescent facility for wounded soldiers and sailors.

In 1923, Margaret Given bought the Stormfield house and remaining property. During renovations that year, the mansion caught fire and was destroyed. An exterior garden stone wall is thought to be the lone remaining structure from the original Stormfield.

In 1924, Mary Millett bought the property and rebuilt a smaller replica of Stormfield. In 1937, Millett sold the new house and property to Doreen Danks. That house stands today on property totaling 28.5 acres on Mark Twain Lane in Redding; in 2013, its current owners listed it for sale for $4 million, having purchased the property in 2003 for $3.45 million.

Stormfield Preserve

Over the years, the Town of Redding spent some $575,000 to acquire more than 160 acres of the original Stormfield property, which today is maintained as a preserve including 4 miles of hiking trails open to the public. In 1986, a Redding town meeting voted not to commission a study assessing whether to designate the Stormfield area a historic district.