Talk:Searles Castle (Massachusetts)

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Untitled

The article says it was commissioned by the widow, but also says the husband died three years before the house was commissioned. As I recall from the plaques in the place when it hosted a chess tournament I played in, the railroad magnate and the wife commissioned the place together and when the railroad magnate died, the architect/designer (Searles) married the then-widow and moved in. I think saying 'commissioned by the widow' misstates the history. Dvd Avins (talk) 18:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

COMMENT: As I read it, the house was commissioned in 1885, her husband, Mark Hopkins who died in 1878, so something is terribly wrong with the chronology there. I suggest that the wealthy Mark Hopkins had nothing to do with this building, but that his widow who had subsequently remarried, and thus THAT second husband, possibly commissioned and worked on the design. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.222.235.168 (talk) 19:02, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

COMMENT FOLLOW UP: Info from the Seattle Times published May 20, 2007

The castle, built in 1888, was commissioned by Mary Hopkins, the widow of railroad tycoon Mark Hopkins. Mary Hopkins hired noted interior decorator Edward Searles for the project, and the two married in 1887. She was 22 years his senior.

Hopkins died in 1891, after which Searles built another castle, in Windham, N.H. After Searles’ death in 1920, the Great Barrington castle spent the next 30 years as a private school for girls. It changed hands among business owners and an insurance company, serving at different times as a storage area, conference center and cultural attraction. Since the mid-1980s, it has been a private school for troubled teens.

Seattle Times news services

Part of the problem I found is that after Mary Hopkins died, as it mentions in the article quoted above, Searles built ANOTHER castle in Windham, NH, and in doing a search for info, they are both called Searles Castle and so the two get mixed up.

COMMENT: It says that Mark Hopkins "was 22 years his senior" but his bio page says that he was 22 years older.

Regarding "finger lock construction"

I think "fingerblock" parquetry is what the passage was attempting to describe.

A web search for "finger lock construction wood floors" yielded no "finger lock" matches – instead it led to alternate suggestions "finger joints" and "fingerblocks". Of those fingerblock style parquet flooring seems to closely fit the use case and description presented in the article.

It seems that "finger lock" may arise from a typo or misunderstood phrasing.

--99.32.150.12 (talk) 22:49, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]