Drive or walk down the driveway on a warm sunny day and you’ll probably find white cotton sheets flying on the line, grandchildren chasing frogs by the pond and chefs in the kitchen preparing a family style dinner to be enjoyed on the porch, in the barn or down by the River House. This is summer at Roads End Farm.
Owners Tom and Claudia McIlvain raised four children in Pennsylvania while operating a hardwood distribution business, but their hearts were always in New Hampshire. In 1991 after years of property searching in the Squam Lake area, they found Claudia’s dream.
At that time, the long driveway dead ended into a small brown cape tucked away in the woods. Miles of stone walls hinted at a working farm of old. Roads End was named and noted on local maps because of a natural gravel pit found at ‘the end of the road’ at the back of the property.
When touring the cape house with realtor Denley Emerson, Tom found a black and white photograph tacked inside a cupboard showing a large solitary granite rock centered in an open field framed by mountains. He had a hunch that it was a photo taken a century ago when most of New Hampshire’s arable land had been cleared for farming. If the photograph was taken on the property, then the rock would still be there as well as the promise of beautiful mountain views. After a bit of tramping around in the woods, Tom found the massive rock. Placing a hand on the boulder, something told him Roads End Farm had the potential to be a very special place.
Today, Roads End is in protected Tree Farm status through the NH Tree Farm System. The fields have been cleared opening up views of the surrounding mountains. Stone walls rebuilt and straightened. Ponds dug and stocked with trout. In 2001, local builders Ben Bullard and Roger Korpi erected a new 40’ x 72’, five-story timber frame barn using local White Pine. The little brown cape in the woods was renovated into an eight bedroom farmhouse for the McIlvains to fill with their 13 grandchildren and friends.
The mountains and granite stone walls remind us that Roads End is part of a much larger history of the town of Sandwich and the live-free-or-die state of New Hampshire.
Still off the beaten path, seated in a pocket of sacred beauty, Roads End is a place shared with friends and those who cherish its specialness.