The Plant Home History"This home is founded on my sincere belief that those who have lived honest, industrious lives and are without means or friends to take care for them, have earned the right to be cared for. Only through the labor and expenditures of others is it possible..."Thomas Plant, 1917 1. Born in 1859 to Antoine Plantand Sophie Rodrigue, recent émigrés from Canada, Thomas Plant grew up in a working class family in Bath, Maine, in a French-Canadian neighborhood known as "French Hill". 2. As a teen, Thomas Plant was known as one of the best baseball players in Maine. 3. Thomas left school at age fourteen, during the depression of 1873, and took work as a boilermaker and an ice cutter. 4. Tom moved to Lynn, Massachusetts in 1880, then known as the "shoe-making capital of the world" to work in a shoe factory where he became an apprentice shoe laster. 5. Within three years of venturing to Lynn, Plant left for California to recuperate with relatives from eyesight damaged by working conditions in the Lynn factory. 6. While in California, legend has it that Plant won a bet over a baseball game that was to provide the seed money to begin his own business and at 25 he returned to Lynn and entered into a cooperative venture that would ultimately evolve into a partnership and then his own private company in 1891. 7. Mr. Plant built his factory in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston the thirteen-acre grounds, and possibly the six-story building itself, were designed by the distinguished architectural firm of Frederick Law Olmsted of Brookline, Massachusetts. one of the nation's leading landscape architects, designed Central Park in New York City and the Fenway and other parks in Boston. 8. Having grown up in poverty and experienced the depravations of unsafe working conditions and long hours, Thomas Plant was not satisfied to run his business as others did, embracing many early reforms including shorter working hours and creating a company gym for the fitness and well being of employees. Plant was on the leading edge of a reform movement known as "enlightened" capitalism and a supporter of Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Party. 9. In 1910 after years of litigation and industrial confrontation, Plant sold his factory to United Shoe Machinery Company and retired as one of the wealthiest Franco-American of his era at the age of 51. Adding what is said to be a 16 million dollar price tag for the business to his already growing personal fortune. 10. Mr. Plant was married twice. According to anecdotal legend he and first wife, Caroline A. Griggs, were married for quite a while. Mr. Plant went away on a trip to France, while there Mr. Plant met Olive Cornelia Dewey, of California and they fell in love. After he returned to the states, Caroline came down to breakfast one day to find a million dollar check in her napkin roll and Thomas walking out the front door. The divorce was said to be quick and relatively painless. 11. In 1912 Plant purchased a tract of land known as Ossipee Mountain Park as well as some additional acreage around it and in 1913 began construction on what was to be his most abiding legacy, a 6500 acre estate in Moultonborough NH dubbed "Lucknow" for a city in India. Today it is known as "Castle in the Clouds" 12. The stone exterior of Castle in the Clouds is made from Granite cut from the surrounding mountains. The stones were hand carved by Italian stone masons from Boston. Plant ordered that the stones be shaped primarily as pentagons, symbolizing the five great powers of the world. The lumber for the exterior and interior woodwork was cut from the property and hand hewn in the shipyards of Bath, Maine before being shipped back to the site by railroad, boat and horse. 13. Thomas Plant purchased land in Bath, Maine and built the Plant Home in memory of his parents. 1916 14. Thomas Plant gave 3,300 shares of his company to a volunteer board. The board immediately sold the shares at market value and put the proceeds ($400,000) into an endowment. 1917 15. Thomas Plant died broke, in 1941, just before creditors auctioned off everything he owned. It is said that a collection had to be taken among neighbors and friends to simply pay his burial expenses. 16. Market competition took some of the wealthier residents away from the Plant Home. The board identified growth strategies in 1980. 17. In 2004, renovations were completed to add 37 modern apartments. 18. In 2005, the board hired Administrator, Don Capoldo. Antiquated policies and procedures were overhauled. Individual subsidies were capped at 30% in an effort to protect the endowment. A Fall gala is held to kick of formal fundraising programs. 19. New board President, Charlie Small is elected in 2006. Small implemented the first annual appeal and Linda Wood, Development Director, created the Thomas Plant Society. A second gala was held. 20. In 2007, the home was granted a 2 year license from State and 100% compliance with tax credits was achieved. Held second annual appeal and third gala, raising over $100,000. Overlooking the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine, The Plant Home is a not-for-profit 100,000 square foot estate with 37 assisted living apartments. Keeping with Thomas Plant's vision, 32 of the 37 apartments are tax-credit, low income assisted living apartments. Five apartments are market rate offering assited living services and the 27 acre campus also is home to 11 private, independent living homes. |
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