Wolfeboro's Little Airport & Ralph M. Horn

[ApS]

An identical amphibian, but in silver, flew low over the airport runway yesterday. It appeared to be giving homage to our bygone Wolfeboro assets of float- and land- plane havens. Since the Republic SeaBee amphibian continuously operated out of the Wolfeboro Airpark for half a century, I saw yesterday's flight as an omen for me to post an update!

Ralph Horn always bemoaned that he hadn't bought the heavily forested eastern approach to the airport, as landing approaches had always been a challenge from that direction. (Some pilots would say "challenge" isn't a strong enough word).

His abutter, Brad Frankum, never "harvested" those big white pines, and allowed his extensive estate to return to Old Growth. While most of the airport-end of Wolfeboro Neck is packed with soggy clay, Frankum's area is one giant granite outcropping. (Now heavily dynamited and fractured).

While not an expert in geology, the old ledge appears to have halted the glacier's southern push of lake bottom clay from 20,000 years ago. From the original grass strip, the paving of the runway had always been fraught with big puddles in summer and frost heaves in spring. The first paving didn't last one year!

But last year, those old Forest Giants were felled from the southern end and the entire paved runway was bulldozed. What had been the old runway was filled with a bazillion truckloads of dirt to extend it several hundred feet—from where it had previously ended in a soggy rockpile. That rockpile, in turn, had been "harvested" from the dredgings of the Walgreen's McMega-Boathouse moat nearby.

The dynamiting for that moat shook the ground and air ten times worse than any New Hampshire earthquake has. I'll bet it was heard in Center Harbor!

The entire runway "terra-forming" got a hydroseeding last year, so it now looks like a pasture. (Well, it did in Spring, before our present drought ).

The intent was to make housing lots, but it's a perfect grass landing strip today, with the approach opened up and "the runway" finally extended.

Maybe the new owners heard that FedEx is now paying Big Bucks to lease air-delivery rights for their smaller freight aircraft! (Which is especially true today, as even the future of Rochester's Airport—Skyhaven—remains gloomy).

Here's a newer view of the hanger—in the distance—during the "terra-forming":

[ApS]

This photo, taken from a Piper Cub, shows the airport's abutting floatplane area with two floatplanes on ramps and one other at the dock. (Diamond Island and Rattlesnake Island—with no houses yet built on the Broads side—appear in the hazy distance).

Because the runway wasn't paved as yet, the photo could have been taken as early as 1957. My guess on the date would be 1961. The floatplane gas pump, photographed lakeside in 1966, doesn't appear here. A large blue hanger, built in 1971, also doesn't appear. (It would have appeared under the Cub's strut).

The paved runway was removed a couple of years ago by a developer, so the same aerial taken in 2006 would have shown a greener, but identical, scene! (OK, there would be no "peppering" of Florida mildew on the slide ).



Since 2006, three McMansions have been built and five docks added. The lakefront white cottage prominent in the photo was upgraded inside and out at a cost of $200K in 1999. It has today been replaced by a spec-built McMansion advertised for $3.9M. (If you don't like the design of the spec-built, there's a buildable lakefront lot available nearby for $4.2M).

After 40 years, the runway has reverted to a grass landing strip once again.

An approach for a landing on the strip has never been easier, as many cathedral pines on adjacent cove lots have been removed. The runway has even been extended in both directions beyond anyone's imagination, and the landing strip's sides could someday be lined with houses with individual hangers.

The commercial hanger (not pictured here) remains to this day: Ralph Horn's distant dream of a "Hanger Community" (residences lined up on a landing strip) is still possible!

[ApS]

You read it here first!

The entire airport property has been re-sold to the Marriott Family: The price is yet unknown.

The seller, an insider, paid $750,000 for the airport in 1995—on a literal handshake with Ralph Horn.

The Marriotts own a huge chunk of contiguous waterfront properties on Tuftonboro Neck (in sight of the airport) and have been looking to buy abutters' properties which have much calmer waters on which to waterski. One recent photo shows one end of the existing estate, so the Marriotts aren't likely to rebuild the airport or to replant the area in forest.

BTW: I just learned that it was a Marriott executive who encouraged Mitt Romney to buy a Wolfeboro waterfront place ten years ago.

Since groundbreaking and dynamiting early last year, that one lakefront lot is still under construction with the usual McMansion on a lot that extends about 300' wide, and extends nearly 400' from the water's edge.

Lot sales have been non-existant, with the "model home" (below) rarely visited. It may have been that rugged, winding, jarring start to a 4-mile-ride to Wolfeboro that failed the developer. At only 20', the lake is not particularly deep between the paired estates (Ayer's Point to Thomas Point), so a bridge constructed between the two Marriott mega-estates can't be ruled out.

Upon the 1995 airport tract's approval for development, the Town of Wolfeboro was promised that half of the land would remain as original forest "In Perpetuity".

So far, so good.

The saga continues:
Will it be bulldozed once again?
Will Ralph Horn's memorial headstone be moved once again?
Or will there be a "Marriott-Wolfeboro Airport"?

[tis]

If it is all true, Acres, your last question is very interesting. I do know that years ago the sons wanted to build an airport by their existing property but JW said over his dead body. So now may be the time. JW (first) has been gone for quite a few years now.

[mcdude]

Acres Per Second: I've looked everywhere for photos to add to this interesting thread but this is all I've come up with!

[ApS]

Thanks for finding that.

It's interesting that the final name for the airport was "The Lakes Region Airpark", and not what's printed there. I've sent out a few feelers to determine what date that matchbook was first seen. For a possible date on that matchbook cover, you've got me studying phillumeny on the Internet—the collection of matchbook covers.

What started that study was the appearance of the striking surface on the "front" of the matchbook: I recall that feature was phased out some years ago. That unsafe feature was very handy when lighting-off a backyard pile of dry brush when you would want to throw the whole lighted matchbook, but be far enough from the pile when using old gasoline as a starting fluid!

The last possible date, it turns out, was 1975 of a phase-out that began in 1965—so now those phone numbers need some work. My immediate neighbor didn't recall that matchbook either, but I remember the "420" number as being the lakeside residence abutting the floatplane ramps, as pictured in the aerial photo.

Where "740" rang may have been Merwin and Eleanor Horn's former Sewall Road winter residence, but might have been shared with the workshop—now razed—attached to the northern end of the T-hangers pictured here earlier. (A photo of the workshop appears below).

Just when the telephone numbers changed to the usual seven digits in Wolfeboro I don't recall, but based on a list of Wolfeboro emergency numbers I've saved, it may have been in the late 50s.

Edited to update:
That match company started in 1954, and ceased operations in 1964.

Wolfeboro may have converted to convential telephone numbers as late as 1964! When I return to the lake, I can do some more sleuthing—with the list saved from that era.

What was remarkable is that I apologized to my immediate neighbor about not having a telephone back then. Her reply was that, "None of us had telephones back then". (So why ruin Paradise with "modern communications", anyway).

In truth, appearing at the doorstep with the question, "Y'wannago waterskiing today?" was always a great way to start off a sunny day on Winnipesaukee. (Though we also skied in drizzle and rain wearing ski goggles! )

I've learned that "Merwin" (as we knew him—not Ralph) is how his family still refers to him, and that Eleanor was an immigrant from Nova Scotia. I recall Eleanor being particularly giddy many years ago about Rt 16 being widened all the way from Rochester, which would "bring more customers to the airport".

So...I'm sending more "feelers" out on this to peg the date closer than the late 50s—my best guess today.

The Airpark's heated, and quite-serious aircraft workshop, photographed in 2004:

[mcdude]

[ApS]

That this is from 1956 doesn't surprise me. This is the old grass landing strip, which was normal for the times and for the region. There was no telephone service—or even electricity service—ten years earlier.

The runway wasn't paved until years later. Having failed because of the freezing and heaving of underground springs, the runway was properly "plumbed" underneath and repaved the following year.

Even after decades of weekly mowings, the clear-cut seen at the lower right has slowly grown back. This property lies near the end of Forest Road. Forest Road got its name because it was a dark forested tunnel to drive through to reach the end. Though I have wandered through Forest Road's many forested acres, I can't recall that the clear-cut in the photo ever existed!

Not pictured there is the blue airpark hanger, added in 1979 and still in place today. The three-digit telephone number style went out by 1964.

The small-appearing shoreline "notch" at the most distant part of the runway is the opening to Johnson's Cove, which lies further to the right in this still-heavily-forested photo. The airport's developer—who bought much of Johnson's Cove—had a disagreement with the town regarding a property tax increase and, among other reasons, the whole works is now in foreclosure.

In 1956, Camp Wyanoke lay beyond that "notch", and reached nearly to Carry Beach. (Far right-hand corner of Winter Harbor, with Jockey Cove and Wolfeboro Bay lying beyond Carry Beach in the hazy distance). Aside from one lakefront lot, which now sports a McMansion, just one structure ( a "model home") has been built since the runway was torn up in 2006.

The huge grassy clearing across the water from the former Camp Wyanoke is most likely the Melanson property off Highland Terrace in Wolfeboro. Melanson is the local realtor family who, among current (and many other offerings), sold Rattlesnake Island lots subsequent to this brochure's printing.

Rattlesnake Island lies "just around the corner" from Wyanoke's Winter Harbor and—to relate it to this photo—would appear about a mile to the right of this photo.