The Frost Place

According to local family lore, poet Robert Frost spotted this property on the west side of Franconia's Ridge Road in 1915 while looking for a home in the area. He purchased it from farmer Willis Herbert, for whom he supposedly procured an adjacent property. The house is 1½ stories in height, with a long front facade covered by a porch. The facade affords fine views of the Franconia Range and Mount Lafayette.[2]

Frost and his family lived in the house until 1920, and spent their summers there for nearly twenty years. The Frost Place was founded in 1976 when the farm was purchased by the town of Franconia, restored, and given its name, opening as a museum in 1977.[3][4][5] Since 1977, the Frost Place has awarded a resident poet award to an emerging American poet, which includes a stipend and the opportunity to live and write in the house during the summer.[3][6]

Beginning in 2013, The Frost Place began offering an annual chapbook prize, with the winning chapbook published by Bull City Press.[3][7] Past winners include Jill Osier, Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet, Anders Carlson-Wee, Tiana Clark, Yuki Tanaka, and Cassandra Bruner.

The Frost Place sponsors a Conference on Poetry, a Poetry Seminar, and a Conference on Poetry and Teaching..[8][9] The Conference on Poetry is directed by poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi,[10] with poet Ross White serving as Associate Director.[11] The Poetry Seminar is directed by poet Patrick Donnelly.[12] The Conference on Poetry and Teaching and the Writing Intensive is directed by poet Dawn Potter;[13] associate director is poet and teacher Kerrin McCadden.[14]

A board of trustees assumed responsibility for the management of the museum and associated programs, and Donald Sheehan served as executive director until 2005. In 2006, the trustees appointed Jim Schley to be Sheehan's successor.[15] From the fall of 2008 until April 2011 the trustees managed The Frost Place.[3] In April 2011, Maudelle Driskell was named executive director. In 2018, poet Jacob Rivers was named assistant to the director.

• Robert Frost Farm (Derry, New Hampshire)
• Robert Frost Farm (Ripton, Vermont)
• Robert Frost Farm (South Shaftsbury, Vermont)
• Robert Frost House, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Grafton County, New Hampshire

• The Frost Place website
• Poem: On the Porch at the Frost Place by William Matthews, The Atlantic Online, February 1982