The Mark Twain House, Hartford, CT, is located in the Nook Farm area of this city, at 351 Farmington Avenue between Willet and Woodland Streets. It is just 3 miles from the downtown State Capitol.
Visitors can tour the house and museum or plan their trip to coincide with one of the planned activities held at the site. These include lectures from artists and authors, concerts and theater performances as well as other family oriented activities.
The great American author lived and worked in this house from 1874 to 1891. Samuel Clemens (the author's birth and legal name) and his wife commissioned the construction in 1873. In 1891, the family was financially forced to move to Europe but they kept the house until 1903.
Clemens would later call the time here the happiest and most productive part of his life.
In 1927, the Friends of Hartford rescued the house from certain demolition at the hands of a developer and from 1931 to 1950 its first floor housed the Hartford Public Library while the rest of the house was rented as apartments until restoration began in the 1960s.
It was not until 2003 that the restoration of the marble floor in the entry hall was initiated as well as the kitchen wing of the house. Archaeologists initiated the first stage of this restoration by investigating for clues that would reveal the original spatial lay out in order to restore the area as closely as possible to its original set up.
The design of the house was conceived of by Edward Tuckerman Potter the architect. Each elevation within the house is uniquely different from the next when inspected up close. The interior was also lavishly decorated in a mix of styles by Louis Comfort Tiffany and his partners.
The gravity flow heat system installed in the house was a modern technology at the time of construction in the early 1870s.
Mark Twain House, Hartford, CT, is one of the first places to have been declared a National Historic Landmark in the US.
Mark Twain House, Hartford, CT, is open seven days a week. On Mondays through Fridays the doors open at 9:30 AM and close at 5:30 PM. On Sundays it is open only in the afternoon, from 12 to 5:30 PM. From January through March it is closed on Tuesdays. It is also closed on Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving Day, December 24 and 25 as well as July 4th, annually.
Admission is free for children under 6 years of age.
Adjacent to the house is a museum dedicated to the American author for whom the house is named. There is a store in this museum for souvenir purchases.
The museum is fully wheelchair accessible but to tour the 3 story house visitors must be able to climb stairs although the first floor is accessible.
Groups of 10 or more should reserve a tour in advance as the house visits are only carried out by tours and are on a first come first serve basis for no more than 16 people at a time.
There is a separate charge to tour the servant wing of the house which is an additional 30 minutes in duration.
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