Chateau Fairmount
Chateau Fairmount in summer: a gray stone house with a round tower and a porte-cochère, ivy on the walls

Chateau Fairmount

A stone house on Belvidere Hill in Lowell, Massachusetts. Built in 1883, a rest home for half a century, foreclosed in 2009, and bought and restored from 2011 — and open to the neighborhood on Halloween night. A private home the rest of the year.

Explore the history Halloween at the castle

Start here

Chateau Fairmount, the stone house at 236 Fairmount Street, painted in the manner of oils

The house

Built in 1883 for a Lowell machinist, home to a judge’s family, a rest home for nearly half a century, and restored since 2011[C-001, C-002, C-056, C-023, C-031].

Oil portrait of Clara Lilley Dunbar, who grew up in the house, as a young woman, after her 1915 yearbook photograph

The galleries’ highlights

The people of the house, the neighbors on the hill, old Lowell, castles and Lowell’s luminaries: start with a dozen favorites in each.

Chateau Fairmount lit up on Halloween night

Halloween

Every Halloween night: torchlight, fog and treats at the castle, free for the neighborhood. Photographs from past years and how to help.

The modern name of an old house

Chateau Fairmount is what its present owner calls the Arthur Bonney Estate: a Chateauesque stone mansion built in 1883 for the Lowell machinist and inventor Abel T. Atherton[C-001, C-002, C-006], and for nearly half a century the Battles Home[C-023].

The 1981 state survey called it the earliest of Lowell’s major late-nineteenth-century stone mansions and the most elaborate example of its style in the city: rock-faced ashlar, cross gables, tall chimneys, a round tower, a porte-cochère, stained-glass transoms and carved sandstone panels, with oak and Minton tile inside[C-006, C-007].

The house is privately owned, lived in, and still being restored. This site keeps to what the records show, and says so where they fall silent.

The grand entry hall: oak paneling, a carved fireplace and a patterned tile floor (view full size)
The grand entry hall. The Minton tile floor is mentioned in the 1981 survey. Photograph: Chateau Fairmount.

The house through time

Eleven milestones introduce the house’s history, each with its source note; the full timeline has 54 events, with the evidence and the open questions behind each.

  1. 1880–82Abel T. Atherton assembles the hillside lot in three purchases.[C-003]
  2. 1883The stone house is built; the date is carved on a sandstone plaque.[C-001]
  3. 1887Sold to Arthur P. Bonney, lawyer and bank president.[C-009]
  4. 1894Bonney’s only child, Clara, wife of Judge Charles S. Lilley, dies; an infant daughter survives her.[C-045]
  5. 1896Bonney dies at home; his estate holds the house, and his heirs are taxed on it in 1916.[C-013]
  6. 1921Judge Lilley dies; his funeral is held in the house.[C-048]
  7. 1925Bonney’s granddaughter, Clara Bonney (Lilley) Dunbar, sells to textile manufacturer Charles Brooks Stevens and his wife, Edith Ames Stevens.[C-016]
  8. 1957Purchased by The Battles Home, a Lowell charity.[C-020]
  9. 1957–2004A private rest home for about eleven residents at a time.[C-023]
  10. 2009–10Foreclosed in 2009; the lender’s deed is recorded in January 2010.[C-030]
  11. 2011Bought by the current owner; restoration begins.[C-031]
The round tower and chimneys against a blue sky (view full size)
Round tower, February 2013. Photograph: Chateau Fairmount.
Three stained-glass windows with a chandelier beside them (view full size)
Stained-glass transoms, January 2014. Photograph: Chateau Fairmount.
The front of the house in deep snow with the flag flying (view full size)
Winter, 2014. Photograph: Chateau Fairmount.

Begin with a story

Read the building

Why a Lowell machinist’s house of 1883 looks like a French château — tower, porte-cochère, rock-faced stone, carved sandstone.

The Battles Home

For nearly fifty years this was a rest home run by a Lowell charity. Explore those years through the records found so far and the questions still open.

The Bonney Witch

A bronze figure at Lowell Cemetery, a Halloween legend, and the four people — who lived in this house — behind it.

Step inside online: the photo tour and a 360° view of the entry hall →

Nine-foot candelabras lit at night on the lawn, the castle floodlit behind them (view full size)

Halloween at the castle

On Halloween night the drive is lit by twenty-two hand-built candelabras and the neighborhood comes up the hill for two hours of torchlight, fog, music and treats[C-044].

Dates, hours and how to help

The castle through the year

Two short films from the house’s own channel. They load only when you press play.

Spring Flowers Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Let It Snow Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

A note from the owner

People stop at the end of the driveway to take pictures, and when they see me they ask about the house. This site is my answer. I have tried to keep the history to what can be documented, and to label the legends as legends.

If you lived here, worked here, or visited the Battles Home, I would be glad to hear from you — and if you have an old photograph, even more so.

— Perry Chaffee

Share a photograph or a memory More about the owner

Stone steps under the porte-cochère lined with chrysanthemums (view full size)
The porte-cochère in autumn. Photograph: Chateau Fairmount.

Sources

Each bracketed claim number, such as [C-001], opens the research note behind a statement. Principal documents: Massachusetts Historical Commission Form B no. 494 (1981); Middlesex North Registry of Deeds, Books 157:155, 191:291, 724:271, 1010:7, 1160:232, 1366:553 and 28668:20; The Lowell Sun, 1893–1921, 2001 and 2011; the Bonney monument inscription at Lowell Cemetery. The architect of the house is not recorded; the Lowell firm Merrill & Cutler designed the estate’s stable (1883). All sources and research notes →