Then and Now: The Eastman House, 1867-1917

Alfred Eastman made his fortune without going far from home. He was born in Kearsarge in 1843, married young and stayed home from the Civil War to work in North Conway’s growing hotel business. Tourism took a great leap immediately after that war, as it does after every war, and Eastman started taking guests into a big home he inherited on Kearsarge Street — at the right in the complex pictured on the 1907 postcard here.

His first wife died in the summer of 1874, leaving him with a couple of children. That threw a monkey wrench into the tourist season that year, but the next winter he married again and started a new brood. Meanwhile, he threw himself whole-hog into cultivating patronage at his hotel, building a three-story addition parallel to the original house, on the opposite side of his property. August was always the busiest month, and at the end of July in 1896 he reported 75 guests already ensconced, with another 25 expected within a few days. Discount rates ran as low as $1.50 per day for large groups. The lowest daily rate offered by the big Main Street hotels, such as the Kearsarge House, was $2.