Then and Now: Taking the high ground in Conway Village

Conway Village lost its first grand hotel in 1912, when the three-story Conway House burned to the ground. The site still remained vacant four years later (as it is again today). Clarence Hanson, who had grown up on farms in Jackson and Bartlett, was running a small boardinghouse on Main Street in 1916, when Elijah Carleton decided to sell the old Samuel Thom homestead, where he had been living for two decades. The big farmhouse stood on the tallest knoll at Conway Corner, across from the new library. It enjoyed spectacular views of Mount Washington after the Conway House burned, and it dominated the first major intersection seen by northbound travelers. 

Clarence and his second wife, Alice, had both been professional cooks. They bought Carleton’s home with the intention of turning it into a full-fledged hotel. Clarence’s son Edward had just moved back into the Hanson home from San Francisco, 36 years old and freshly divorced, and he acted as manager while his father and stepmother ran the kitchen. Assuming staggering mortgages totaling $15,000 over the next year, they tore down the extensive barns and outbuildings, lengthened the 1826-vintage main house, added dormers to accommodate a third floor and built a three-story ell on the north side. By the time Conway boys were fighting the Hun in France, the Hansons were catering to those who had no need to worry about war.