The "Limbo Years" of Wentworth Hotel
Photos by Stephen Gianotti & Tom McCarron
New Castle, NH, 1998-99

 In retrospect, it all  seems like a dream. For twenty years the massive hotel stood vacant on the New Castle bluff looking blankly out to sea. With Wentworth-by-the-Sea re-opened and bustling, we quickly forget how close it came to complete destruction.

Yet much was lost. Fully 85 % of the 800-foot long Victorian hotel was razed by previous owners. In 1998 photographer Stephen Gianotti asked permission of the Green Company to capture images of the hotel. Closed in 1981, the Wentworth was  in desperate shape when  Gianotti and his friend Tom McCarron  began shooting pictures inside and out.

 

Following is a gallery of details from the Colonial Revival era, plaster cherubs, wooden rosettes and adorned columns. Most were destroyed when the 1880s and 1890s additions were billdozed recently, but not all. Only the earliest portion of the hotel has survived and been renovated and modernized by the new owners Ocean Properties. Today Gianotti's photographic record offers a rare last look at the architecural detailing from Frank Jones era. --- JDR

Wentworth-by-the-Sea Photos
Victorian Details












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