Director

In 1820 the NH legislature granted the rights to control the water levels of Lake Sunapee to a newly formed Sunapee Dam Corporation. The Corporation initially consisted of mill owners from Newport and Claremont who depended on the river to operate their water-powered businesses. The Corporation built the first lake dam in 1821, hired a dam-keeper, and built a secure building around the dam so others could not adjust its gates. Over time, industry depended less on the river for power but still needed to regulate the flow of water to carry their waste products away. Public health issues emerged with a surge in typhoid fever during the 1880s, when drought caused the Dam Corporation to maintain high lake water levels and shut down flow to the river. Raw sewage, previously diluted by river flow, collected in stagnant river pools.In 1890 citizens petitioned the Board of Fish and Game to require the Dam Corporation to install a ladder for fish migration, but the Corporation refused. In 1898 lake shore owners and others with interests in the lake steamboat company formed the Lake Sunapee Protective Association (LSPA) to protect the rights of property owners in the fight to control lake levels. In 1904 an agreement was finally reached that established high and low water levels.In 1927 as part of a new municipal water system, the lake dam was replaced, the old dam house was removed, and a pedestrian walk was built on the new dam screen. Finally, in 1961 the State Water Resources Board took control of the Lake Sunapee dam from the Dam Corporation and retained Artie Osborne as the last dam-keeper. Today, lake levels are maintained between 9-feet and 11.4-feet as measured at the harbor gauge in accordance with the agreement reached in 1904.

The only outlet of Lake Sunapee and the head of the Sugar River is in Sunapee Harbor. The Sugar River flows from the Lake through the screens on one side of the road and over a dam on the other side. Water level is controlled now by the State of NH but control began in 1820 when a private corporation of down-river industries built the first dam and controlled the flow.

Lake Sunapee Outlet and Dam

Take a walk with us through the early stories of Sunapee Harbor.

This barn was built by Wm. Wallace Flanders 1891 and leased to Frank and George Blodgett for a horse and carriage livery. In 1901 the Flanders stable and the near-by Harbor Hotel stable were both being operated by Fitz Corser. In 1907, Wallace Flanders' grandson, Leo Osborne, turned the livery into an auto repair business. Shortly thereafter, Leo with his three sons - Robert, Raymond, and Arthur - turned the business into the Osborne Garage and Marine which continued in business for the next 70 years.In 1918 the town was celebrating its 150th anniversary and may be the reason Leo and Clara Osborne decorated the building as seen in this photo. An addition had been added to the south side, a separate storage garage next to that, and two gas pumps added along East Main Street. In 1925, Leo Osborne built a new automotive garage on East Main Street and this building became Osborne Marine, used for boat repairs and sales. In 1973 the Sunapee Historical Society was founded by a group of interested citizens and formally incorporated in 1978. In 1980, Fay Osborne, the great grandson of the barn's original builder donated it to the historical society as its permanent museum. Restoring the building took the volunteer efforts of many individuals with Fay Osborne leading the way.  For a deeper look into the stories of all that has happened here over the years, check with the Sunapee Historic Society. Look for Sunapee's Historic Buildings &amp; Places Vol. 1 .

The Sunapee Historical Museum is located in what many remember as the Osborne's Marine building in the center of Sunapee Harbor. Built originally as a stable it has been proudly preserved by members of the Historical Society as an ideal place to share artifacts of the farming, industrial, and tourist industries of the region. Today you can see machinery that kept the old steamships running, dishes from the old hotels, equipment from local farms, items from all aspects of life and even the names of the horses once stabled here.

Sunapee Historical Society Museum

This house located near the head of the river and on the edge of the lake was built in 1836 for Elijah Peasley, a Blacksmith, by Horance Stickney, a master carpenter. Prior to 1842 the house was a local tavern. Over the next 30 years it was home to several local mill owners, including Christopher Cross who built the harbor sawmill, and Isaac Colby a partner in the threshing machine fabrication shop.In 1871, the Colby homestead was sold to Mrs. Triphena Flanders with a deed stating that this property was for “her sole use and shall not be in control of any future husband.” For the next 113 year this was the home of the Flanders family. In the 1870s the two Woodsum brothers who ran the steamboat LADY WOODSUM boarded here.  At that time, summer visitors were on the increase thanks to the Woodsum’s steamboat passenger service and new hotels being built. William Flanders took advantage of his location and rented rowboats – the first boat livery on Lake Sunapee. In 1888, he was the dam keeper for the Sunapee Dam Corporation. In 1889, he constructed a building next door as a restaurant and in 1890 built a large stable across the road from his home for a horse and carriage livery business (today’s Museum). William Flanders died here in 1911. The property was inherited by his son, Will W. Flanders Jr. who lived here with his wife Flora for 30 years. Will Flanders worked as a steamboat captain, was an owner of the Ben Mere Inn, and developed the Lake Avenue shore into cottage lots. When Will died childless in 1941, the property went to his nephews, the sons and grandsons of his sister, Emma Osborne.In 1949 Fay Osborne bought this house from his uncle and cousins. Fay had a summer home near Dewey Beach and was a research engineer who patented the paper used in tea bags. In 1984 Barbara and Ron Sullivan bought the house from Fay’s estate and established the Wild Goose Gift Shop. In 1987 a developer bought the house and other harbor commercial properties. They demolished the original attached barn and in 1990 lost all their harbor properties to foreclosure.Harbor properties under threat of foreclosure were rescued when the Sunapee Harbor Riverway, Inc. was formed by community members concerned about the future of the waterfront. Funds were raised and the Harbor Riverway was able to purchase commercial properties from Sugar River Savings Bank in 1991. Today the Riverway continues to lease this building to local merchants and maintain its historical presence.

This house, built by Stickney on property owned by Elijah Peasley in 1836, became the homestead of Isaac Colby in 1855. Since 1871 it has been in the Flanders/Osborne family for more than 100 years. It is currently owned and maintained by the Sunapee Harbor Riverway, Inc. and opens in the summer as a gift shop.

Colby - Flanders Homestead; 77 East Main Street – Sunapee Harbor

W. Wallace Flanders completed construction of this building in 1889 for his son-in-law, George Osborne, who operated the Day Dawn Café restaurant and souvenir shop serving Sunapee’s summer visitors and steamboat passengers. George and his wife Emma found the harbor a perfect place to raise their three sons Stanley, Rollo, and Leo. Following this first summer of operation, George died unexpectedly at age 36, leaving Emma to raise their three young sons. From 1902 to 1919, Emma's son Stanley Osborne ran Day Dawn Café, followed by J. Fred Eastman, who changed the name to J. Fred Eastman’s Café. In 1929 Charlie Rowell bought the property and operated his Chris-Craft boat dealership from the restaurant docks. His wife Florence ran the Café until 1934 when the property was lost to bank foreclosure. The following year, Christine V. Williams bought the property and ran the restaurant as Williams Harbor Grille and Gift Shop until 1956. In 1967, the property came full circle when it was purchased by Leo Osborne’s sons and grandsons and used as a showroom for Osborne’s Garage &amp; Marine. The property was sold in 1991 to the Sunapee Harbor Riverway. Since 2003 this building has been home to the Harbor Trading Post.

The Day Dawn Cafe restaurant and souvenir gift shop was built by W. Wallace Flanders in 1889. It has had many owners and various names over the years but has always held a key position at the busy summer waterfront. It is now owned by Sunapee Harbor Riverway and home to Harborside Trading.

Day Dawn Café - Harbor Trading Post;  81 Main Street

This story begins in the late 1870s when three Woodsum brothers started a passenger and freight steamboat service connecting various lake landing sites with the trains at Newbury station. It was also the time when the first hotels were being built around the lake. In 1876 the Woodsum brothers made serious improvements to a rickety dock at the end of the road to Sunapee Harbor they used for boarding and discharging passengers from their new steamboat business.Ten years later improvements were needed again and in 1885 the Woodsums brought in a steam powered pile driver to set oak logs for a larger wharf and built a granite stone wall at the wharf's lake shore. With the opening of the Runals House hotel in 1878, the shore land at the wharf was part of the hotel's waterfront and over the next 20 years was transformed into a park for guests. The hotel owners built a granite lake wall, a bowling alley building, a large lawn, and tennis courts. The Woodsum Steamboat Company built a low-roofed passenger terminal at the wharf to maintain a low profile so the view to the lake would not be obstructed from the hotel. By 1908 the Woodsum Company had negotiated with the Ben Mere Hotel to build an even larger passenger terminal. The new building was two-stories high and included a snack shop and an upper floor workshop.Following the first World War, the rise in automobile travel foretold the demise of steamboats. In 1928 the Woodsum Company was sold. The new owner sold the passenger terminal building and in 1932 it was moved to River Road to be used as boat storage by Osborne Marine and was named “Pete’s Shed”. The Great Depression of the 1930s were tough times for Sunapee Harbor followed in the 1940s by the war years. The steamboats were gone and hotels closed. But in 1944, the people of Sunapee voted to purchase the wharf and the Ben Mere waterfront that included the steamboat wharf and turn it into a town park.In 1944 the Lake Sunapee Regatta Association directors raised funds to rebuild the old steamboat wharf and dedicated it to the memory of Edward Barry, a long-time regatta organizer and judge who had recently died. In the late 1940s a parking lot was built near the wharf, followed by a public restroom and bandstand for concerts. In 1950, lake passenger excursion service was revived with the arrival of the M.V. Mt. Sunapee. Harbor businesses began to thrive again in the post-world war boom years, bringing the harbor wharf to life once again. In 2004 the tour boat was joined by the dinner boat Kearsarge, an echo of the old Woodsum days when multiple steamers were an integral part of Sunapee Harbor. Today the Harbor Park is enhanced with flower beds and shrubs maintained by the Sunapee Gardeners.For a deeper look into the stories of all that has happened here over the years, check with the Sunapee Historic Society. Look for Sunapee's Historic Buildings &amp; Places Vol. 1 .

Access to the lake for many at Lake Sunapee Harbor is the wharf located at the intersection of Lake Avenue, Burkehaven Hill Road, and Main Street. Today it is a busy area between the boat launch and the big tour boats. This has a colorful history back to the era of lake steamboats and grand hotels in the 1870s.

Sunapee Town Wharf

The arrival in 1876 of train service to Newbury with its connecting passenger steamboat service was the critical factor that spurred the dawn of Sunapee Harbor’s tourism era. In 1877 business partners Albert Runals and John Gardner began purchasing land at Sunapee Harbor for their new Harbor hotel and made plans for a 40-guest room structure modelled after the nearby Burkehaven Hotel. It was 190-feet long, two-stories high, with a broad porch, and large attached barn, a formidable presence on the Sunapee waterfront. The Runals House opened on July 4, 1878 and more than 200 people dined in the hotel’s hall on opening day. In 1881 a bandstand was built where the Sunapee Brass Band played and in 1885 a bowling alley was added at the waterfront.In March 1890 work began on a larger and grander hotel. The Lake Sunapee Hotel Company investors considered several names for their new enterprise and settled on Ben Mere meaning “high hill lake” in Gaelic and opened the Ben Mere Inn the summer of 1890. The new hotel included reading rooms, a large parlor with fireplaces, a broad piazza overlooking the lake, an observation tower on the roof, and 100 guest rooms with toilet and bathing facilities for men and women on each floor. A plank walk was built from the hotel’s entrance to the steamboat wharf so that guests need not walk in the mud. The Ben Mere Inn offered tennis, bowling, billiards, band concerts, dancing, horseback riding, sailing and boating. In the early spring of 1903 a fire broke out in the rear wing but Sunapee firemen worked valiantly and saved the building. Although business was difficult during World War I, it blossomed during the Roaring 20’s when thousands of people arrived each summer to vacation. But the growing use of autos reduced train and steamboat travel and by 1930 the era of the big steamboats on Lake Sunapee was nearly over. In 1930 Lewis Dudley, owner of the Ben Mere, bought the Woodsum Steamboat Company properties only to watch over the decline of an era. By the end of 1940, the Ben Mere property was owned by a Newport bank and the country entered WWII.Over the next 20 years the hotel was owned, managed, sold, and remortgaged as the old hotels slowly lost their appeal. In 1967 the Ben Mere opened for its final summer. In 1968 a liquidation sale was held by the partners of Ben Mere Inc. and in June the building was torn down and burned on site. The property continued to be owned by Ben Mere Inc. until 1970 when it was sold to the Sunapee Conservation Commission for $41,000 to be used as a park.Today this area makes up part of the town’s Sunapee Harbor park, enhanced with a band stand and parking. The broad lawn that once graced the front of the Hotels remains along with a few hydrangea bushes that once lined the walkways to the lake, a reminder of days gone by.

The Gazebo at Sunapee Harbor stands at the former site of the grand hotel - The Ben Mere Inn. In the 1800s the green lawns, shrubs, and walkways led a multitude of vacationers from rooms in the big hotel down to the steamships at the woodsum wharf at water's edge.

Ben Mere Hotel, Runals House, Sunapee Waterfront Park

In 1955 the owner of the Ben Mere Inn, Jack Burney, understood the changing culture of tourists visiting the lake and decided to offer his hotel guests an option. He had Bill Stocker construct a smaller building in front of the hotel tennis court and called it the Ben Mere Grill. The Grill opened in 1955 with serving counters and stools, small tables, and big jalousie windows. It served 3 meals a day and late-night burgers on weekends.In 1964 Burney sold the Grill to Eleanor and Bob Hill, owners of the Woodbine Cottage next door. The Hills refurbished the interior and changed the name to The Ice Cream Cottage. They served lighter fare here than in their restaurant but were open 11AM to late evening. The next year Eleanor Hill renovated the windows and turned the business into the Woodbine Cottage Gift Shop, featuring unusual gifts, ornaments, and cards. In 1968 the big hotel behind the building was torn down leaving only the gift shop as the last remaining part of the Ben Mere Inn.In 2005 the gift shop property was sold to Soo-Nipi Realty Trust LLC. As a leased property, the building has seen a number of businesses over the years - a real estate office, the Sunapee Harbor Sweet Shop &amp; Café, and Quacks take-out seafood. The building has been modified with a deck, different front doors, new windows and interior changes. Most recently the building was painted bright colors and happily serving Stacy’s Smoothies.

The Ben Mere Grill, located in the heart of Sunapee Harbor, is the sole surviving structure of the Ben Mere Inn and Runals Hotel properties. There are many visitors to the Harbor who remember this for burgers, gift items, or smoothies. With key location, it’s no surprise it is still being used for businesses today.

Ben Mere Grill, Holly Cottage, Stacy's Smoothies 

Woodbine Cottage was built about 1820 as a mill house by Robert Emerson who briefly owned 21-acres at the head of the Sugar River as well as several water-powered mills. By 1864 the cottage and the big lake house were owned by Isaac Stevens, who had an interest in the horse powered threshing machine mill on the river. He sold the cottage to Susan Cottrell, the recently widowed daughter of Susan and Robert Osborn, and was home to the Osborn family for the next 30-years. By 1893 the little house was in a prime location in the harbor, next to the new Ben Mere Inn and was sold at a good price to the owners of Sunapee’s hame works. The house was rented out and in 1910 became the Indian Tree Tea Room, then in 1921 the Poll Parrot Tea Room. In 1928 Eleanor and Robert Hill of Sunapee purchased the property and established a landmark restaurant business in the little house. Eleanor was a self-taught cook and baker, who became a competent restaurant owner. Her first menu established the standard of her business: “Substantial and Dainty Foods for Discriminating People.” Tasty meals were served at the new Woodbine Cottage, with food prepared on a wood stove. The entire Hill family worked in the business and their story is one of what it means to be an integral part of a community. Over the next 60 years there were many additions and changes to the building and the property.There was a special feeling in this restaurant, with lovely gardens outside, fresh flowers on every table, and a delicious aroma that lured diners with thoughts great coffee and delicious butterscotch buns. In 1977 the Woodbine Cottage opened for its 50th year, employing 46 people and in one five month season in the 1980s, it served 50,000 meals. But a family business does not outlast the family. When Bob died in 1981, Eleanor continued to run the restaurant with the support of her family for a few more seasons. In 1994, she closed the restaurant and died three years later. The restaurant sat empty until 1999 when a new owner considered rebuilding. Then, nothing happened and for a number of years the property changed hands until 2008 when new owners demolished the building In 2015 the property was sold again, the old gardens began to be restored, and the only remaining building from the Woodbine Cottage days was renovated into a family summer cottage.  For a deeper look into the stories of all that has happened here over the years, check with the Sunapee Historic Society. Look for Sunapee's Historic Buildings &amp; Places Vol. 1 .

There was a snug cottage here in 1820, a home to many of the earliest harbor families, and a beloved Sunapee restaurant for many years. The original restaurant is gone but the site remains with many fond memories of summer lovely gardens, hospitable dining, and butterscotch rolls. Another ideal spot holding a lot of history.

Woodbine Cottage Restaurant

Located at the end of River Road is a brick building, owned by the town, which controls the domestic water delivery system for Sunapee.  It was built in 1933 at a cost of $34,500 and held two pumps, one powered by a water wheel turbine and one powered by a gasoline engine, each capable of pumping 250 gallons per minute.The water system is the result of the town’s need to provide safe water to village homes in the 1880s when diseases like typhoid and cholera were being caused by polluted surface and well water. In 1886 the Sunapee Water Company was formed to finance the building of a water system. The Company hired workmen to do the hard work of digging, turning up boulders, and breaking ledge to lay the pipe to deliver gravity-fed lake water to some homes in the village. By 1901 an increase in population and hot, dry summers showed the need for the town to expand its water system and include more homes. This time a steam powered drill and plenty of dynamite was used. When finished, water was pumped into the new pipes by a hydraulic water wheel located at the hames plant located on the down-river side of the High Street bridge. In 1914 the hames plant building (that held the town pumping station) was for sale and the town was forced to buy the plant, to keep the pumps running, and find a tenant for the factory building. This system continued for nearly 20 years but by the early 1930s it was obvious the town needed to build a permanent home for the water system. Just up-river from the old hames pumping station there was a big sawmill that had outlived its space. The town took the opportunity to buy the building, had it removed, and built this new pump station. More than 1,600 feet of 12-inch pipe was laid from here out into the lake with pipe sections fitted together on the ice.  In 1932, a new concrete dam was completed near the current Sunapee Harbor dam.  For a deeper look into the stories of all that has happened here over the years, check with the Sunapee Historic Society. Look for Sunapee's Historic Buildings &amp; Places Vol. 1 .

This brick building at the end of River Road is owned by the town and is the control center for Sunapee water. The Water Department is charged with providing water from Lake Sunapee to homes in the area with the help of pumps and systems in this building. The pumps were not always here in this building. There is a story...

Sunapee’s Water System & Water Pumping Station;  66 River Road

From the early 1800’s, at the head of the Sugar River in Sunapee’s upper village there were log and stone dams and water-powered mills, including a saw mill, a grist mill, machine shops, a wood pulp mill, and buildings of the Granite Hames Company. For decades, this site on the north side of the High Street Bridge along with land on the south side, formed the industrial hub of the town. In 1940, the last manufacturer, Brampton Woolen Company shut down their operation in the old Hames works buildings and the area headed into two decades of deterioration.  William Torrey Baird Jr. (1886-1969) had spent summers on Lake Sunapee, loved the area and felt strongly that Sunapee was in need of rebuilding. In 1957, Baird gave the town $1,000 “to make plans for its improvement”. With an additional $500 contributed by the town, a professional study was conducted to prepare the 1958 report, “Plan for the Improvement of Sunapee Harbor.” The first step towards revitalization was removal of the empty and dilapidated mill buildings. As work to clean up the old mill sites around the river proceeded, Selectman Leo Osborne (1887-1964), who served Sunapee as Selectman for 44 years, died. Because of his enthusiasm about the “new look” for Sunapee, William Baird sought to memorialize Leo Osborne for his significant civic contributions to the town. Baird hired a landscape architect to design the Leo L. Osborne Reflecting Pool, a plan to turn the unsightly outflow below the granite dam into a beautiful water feature. Baird donated the funds for its construction, and saw its completion in 1966.

This site is dedicated to the memory of Leo Osborne for his significant civic contributions to the town. Summer resident William Baird Jr contributed funds to remove the vacant and deteriorating mill buildings at the heart of the upper village and funded the creation of this reflecting pool memorial. Baird participated in the 1958 "Plan for the Improvement of Sunapee Harbor" was finalized.

Leo Osborne Reflecting Pool

Although this building at the corner is currently a restaurant, many Sunapee folk remember it as the only hardware store in the village. In the 1800s before commercial hardware stores, there were tin shops where skilled craftsmen would cut, bend, shape, and create many of the items needed by homeowners.In the 1880s, there was a successful Tin Shop operating in this building. In 1887 it was purchased by the owners of the Hame Works mill who owned a number of properties in the area. The rapid growth of the mill put pressure on available housing and in 1901 the owners decided to improve this property with a tin-shop addition and a two-story tenement building. These additions made the property more profitable and provided housing for their workers.In 1905, former hame works owner George Bartlett owned the property which included the tin shop, a barn, and a tenement wing. Bartlett sold the Tin Shop Block in 1921 to Clifford and Alden Gamsby of Sunapee thus making the Gamsby brothers the first tin shop operator to also own the real estate. In 1947 Marvin Laskey operated a plumbing, heating and hardware business here known as Laskey’s Hardware until well into the 1960s.For a deeper look into the stories of all that has happened here over the years, check with the Sunapee Historic Society. Look for Sunapee's Historic Buildings &amp; Places Vol. 1 .

Todays Wildwood Smokehouse is remembered by many as the site of the old Laskey’s Hardware store. But years before Laskey's there were other skilled craftsmen working in this building making items by bending tin, soldering iron, and threading steel pipes. This was an 1800s Tin Shop, an important resource for the many local mills and small businesses.

The Tin Shop, Hardware Store, Restaurant; 45 Main Street

This rental property is one-half of a house that was built in 1851 by Americus Sargent on land he purchased along the harbor shore near the dam. Americus worked in the threshing machine shop. In 1857 William Hopkins bought the house and added a shop where he made leather wallets. He sold the house three years later to Josiah Turner, one of Sunapee's most important industrialists who lived here until 1870. Turner sold the property to Abiather Young, a Sunapee manufacturer of clothes pins. In 1878 Young’s estate sold the house at auction to Charles Knowlton, an investor in the Sunapee Lake Steamboat Company.In 1886 Charles sold the Hopkins house to his sister-in-law, Lucy Knowlton. Her husband, Moses, wanted to build a larger house on the property overlooking the harbor. Rather than demolish the Hopkins house, he hired Eben Batchelder to divide it into two sections and move each half onto new stone foundations built at each corner of his lot. This section was moved here in 1889, roofed with slate, and expanded with two wings which made it an attractive addition to the street. Once completed, each half of the Hopkins house became a tenement and was immediately occupied due to the severe housing shortage. For a deeper look into the stories of all that has happened here over the years, check with the Sunapee Historic Society.  Look for Sunapee's Historic Buildings &amp; Places Vol. 1.

This rental property is one-half of a house built in 1851 on the site of today’s LSPA building. The property was owned in 1889 by Moses Knowlton who, wanting a larger home, decided to divide the original house and move the sections to alternate corners of his property to be used as tenements. This was a wise move at a time when there was a serious shortage of housing for factory workers in the area.

Knowlton Tenement at 59 Main Street

Originally, this historic building was the stable for the Harbor Hotel located next door. Thomas Smith built this a 50-guest room hotel, first called Hotel Guelma, in 1888. Within a year the hotel was enlarged and a new stable was constructed to accommodate 30 horses (today’s Livery). The stable was built for carriages on the street level floor and horse stalls on the floor below, connected by a novel semi-circular horse ramp which still exists inside the building today.In 1910, Herbert Sawyer bought the stable. Herbert had the roof rebuilt into the building we see today, but over time it became apparent to him that the need for horse stables was quickly fading. In 1920 he sold the livery to the Town of Sunapee for use as a central fire station. Renovations to the building were made to accommodate the fire trucks and other firefighting equipment. The town selectmen soon began holding their meetings in the building, transitioning it from a livery to the Town Hall. In 1926, Moses Knowlton gifted a clock tower to the town and it was added to the fire station roof where it could be seen overlooking Sunapee Harbor and the whole village. In 1949, the Harbor Hotel next door to the fire station caught fire which destroyed the hotel's 1889 wing.In 1951, the fire department knew they needed a more modern station. The town voted funds and a new station was completed in 1953. After the fire department vacated the building, it remained in use as the office until 1989 and in 1993 became home to the Sunapee Thrift shop. In 2008, the old livery was recognized as an important historical asset worthy of preservation and was added to the New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places. In 2015, an agreement was struck with the Selectmen to sell the property to the Sunapee Harbor Riverway Corporation with requirements for preserving historic features in the building such as the clock, horse ramp, and livery doors, and to provide public use space. The Riverway then signed a lease with the non-profit Sunapee Heritage Alliance, making the group responsible for the building’s use and maintenance and guiding it to serve the community into the future. In 2020 the Livery was purchased by the Sunapee Heritage Alliance.For a deeper look into the stories of all that has happened here over the years, check with the Sunapee Historic Society. Look for Sunapee's Historic Buildings &amp; Places Vol. 1 .

The Sunapee Harbor Livery, now in the care of the Sunapee Heritage Alliance, has served many roles through the years. Although built as a livery for the Harbor Hotel, since the 1920s it has served as a fire station and Town Hall, and as a meeting and work space for many community organizations. Once thought to be of little further use to the town, it is now preserved as a valuable cultural center.

The Livery at Sunapee Harbor;  58 Main Street

In 1851 Americus Sargent built a home on this site. After it changed hands a few times, Lucy Knowlton, the wife of Moses Knowlton, purchased it in 1886. Moses wanted to build a grand home where the old house stood so he had the building separated into two sections and moved to different ends of the property to use as tenements. Claremont’s Hira A. Beckwith, the county’s leading architect, was hired to design this Queen Anne style home. It was completed in 1890 proudly sitting high above the lake overlooking the whole harbor.Moses Knowlton and his father ran a dry goods store in Sunapee. In addition to building this home, he purchased all the land along the lake shore up to what is now called Dewey Beach then sold off more than 30 cottage lots. The Knowlton’s only son died young. They befriended Herbert (Bert) Sawyer, who ran the livery across the street from the Knowlton’s home and took over operations at the Knowlton Store. In 1911, the Knowlton home was sold to Bert and his wife Alys. Before Lucy Knowlton died, she sold the Anchorage property to Burt, with a deed restriction that limited the height of the building so that it could never block the lake view from the house.During the 1950s, the Sawyers farmed the property and ran a guest house, and in 1960, sold the property to Norman and Elizabeth Perkins of Sunapee. The house was next a bed and breakfast inn until being sold in 1995 to Sandy Rouse who restored the old house and turned the property into an event center. In 2008 she sold to the Lake Sunapee Protective Association (LSPA) for use as their headquarters and environmental education center.For a deeper look into the stories of all that has happened here over the years, check with the Sunapee Historic Society.  Look for Sunapee's Historic Buildings &amp; Places Vol. 1

The lovely Queen Anne style house sitting prominently above the Harbor is the second house to be built here. It was the home of Moses Knowlton, a philanthropic, civic minded selectman and state representative for Sunapee. It has been a home, a farm, a guest house, and an event center. In 2008 it became the lake environmental center of the LSPA.

Moses Knowlton House, LSPA;  63 Main Street

Fishing guide Perley Graves was managing the Day Dawn Café in 1900 when he decided it was time to run his own business. He rented a piece of land along the lake from Mrs. Lucy Knowlton and hired carpenter H. G. Stockwell to construct a 20’x36’ building complete with kitchen, porch, and a dock at the water. Business was good and in 1905 Graves signed a 5-year lease and expanded the building adding a big bay window on each side of the front door in 1908.In 1912, Graves sold the business to Mott Bartlett who continued to lease the land and operated until 1920 when he sold the business to Ethel and Warren F. Morgan. Ethel ran the store in the Harbor and Warren ran the boat livery in Burkehaven. In 1924, they also bought Pike’s Bazaar, across the street next to the Harbor dam. In the late 1920s, Warren was the Dodge motorboat dealer and displayed boats from his Harbor dock. In 1938, the Morgans renovated, enclosing the porch for more dining space, adding booths, and updating the equipment.In 1951, the Morgans sold the property to Wesley Hillbourne and Raymond F. Bohman, who made changes and renamed the business The Anchorage. Changes included upgrades to the soda fountain counter, new booths, a landscape mural in the porch dining room, and a game room in the rear wing. Over the next 40 years ownership of the Anchorage changed many times. Since 1991 the property has been owned by the Sunapee Harbor Riverway Corp.For a deeper look into the stories of all that has happened here over the years, check with the Sunapee Historic Society. Look for Sunapee's Historic Buildings &amp; Places Vol. 1 .

This building has been the place to go for food since the early 1900s. The signs over the doors have changed from Ice Cold Temperance Drinks, to Morgan’s Store and Ice Cream, to The Anchorage. No matter the name, visitors have come by foot, by car, and by boat for over 100 years for refreshments and the variety of activity along this Sunapee waterfront.

Sunapee Harbor Historical Walking Tour

Lake Sunapee Outlet and Dam

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources