“Mari-Castle”

Albert B. Chandler was born in western Randolph, served as a cipher operator at the War Department during the Civil War, and, afterward, worked as a telegraph manager. In 1884, he joined the Postal Telegraph Cable Company, soon becoming its president and general manager. In 1886 he returned to his hometown and built a large summer house on the hill, naming it “Mari-Castle” after his wife, Randolph native Marilla Stedman. The brick-veneered Queen Anne house has variously shaped gables trimmed with verge-boards that, originally, were similar to those at “Montague Place,” the 1887 summer house of Robert J. Kimball (located nearby at the east end of Randolph Avenue, it is now a nursing home). Chandler also erected a matching hipped-roof carriage barn to the side and set back from the house, and landscaped a portion of his one-hundred-acre estate to create a driving park, which he allowed local residents to enjoy. In 1894, Chandler hired George E. Harding and William T. Gooch, whom he knew because they had just completed the Postal Telegraph Building on Broadway in New York City, to remodel his summer house. They made it a “castle” by adding a Chateauesque round tower at its northeast corner and a two-story ell with a similarly rounded end at its northwest corner. The original wraparound Queen Anne porch was also reconfigured with a broad polygonal pavilion, effectively balancing the round tower addition. The result is indicative of the cultural influence of native Vermonters who returned to their hometowns in the 1880s and 1890s as patrons and benefactors.