Exploring Mansions

Part One of Three

Chess House

In Mid November Despite the very cold New England Weather my friends over at “ The Need for Exploration” and myself planned a day of epic exploring in undisclosed parts of a very Interesting place that is over flowing with history. This town/region is an abandoned chasers play ground, driving though you see everything from old run down farms to movie theaters, hotels and more we have yet to uncover. For this trip we wanted to check out a small handful of abandoned mansions conveniently located within fifteen minutes of each other, (but also four and a half hour drive one way from home). We left Early in the morning before sunrise so we could maximize our shooting time with the short amount of daylight we get in the winter. The First house we stopped was “The Chess House” ,not much is known about this location, we have yet to dig up any history or pictures from before the natural damage set in. It was the smallest of the three but it had so much character and it was easy to imagine how it used to look in proper condition. An easy entrance met us with a short staircase from the basement to the main floor, we knew what we were looking for thanks to other urban explorers who gave us this lead but it was still pretty incredible to find the chess room, especially after seeing pictures for weeks prior, there is something extremely satisfying about a perfectly executed plan ( sometimes these adventures don’t work out and you are met with unplanned security or locked doors that we’re supposed to be open). Easy to find Easy to enter and a dream to photograph. The Chess room was hard to figure out, you can see from my galley it was a tiled floor with all these strange and seeming random sculptures, from faces and nude bodies to giant and miniature horse heads it was certainly a one of a kind find. In the corner of this room appeared to be a work bench covered in water damage and old broken plates and tools, perhaps a sculptors art studio? The rest of the house was no disappointment either, there was another room containing a single lamp and chair with windows built into the walls that connected to the kitchen as well as mirrors in the walls and a beautiful chandler hung mostly intact, the kitchen featured stained glass and the old rotary phone still hung on the wall, upstairs might of been my very favorite part though, the roof as you could see from the outside was circular and had small circular windows all the way around it, when you went upstairs you found yourself in this beautiful round attic with skylight lights in the floor. Whoever built this house I imagine was a fan of light because even though most of the windows were boarded you could see how the light would come though the windows and skylights in floor down to the living room area below. Such a strange and useful way to use the natural light it has inspired some ideas for my ”if I build a house someday” plans. We didn’t stay for more than an hour or so as i said this was the smallest one but it was defiantly the most original home or library or art studio, whatever it was in its prime as well as its decayed state it was beautiful without a doubt.