Highfields (Amwell and Hopewell, New Jersey) facts for kids
Highfields
|
|
Location | End of Lindbergh Rd., East Amwell, NJ 08551 |
---|---|
Area | 380 acres (150 ha) |
Built | 1931 |
Architect | Delano & Aldrich |
Architectural style | Mixed French and English Tudor Revival with Colonial Revival treatments |
NRHP reference No. | 94001096 |
Quick facts for kids Significant dates |
|
Added to NRHP | September 23, 1994 |
Highfields was the home of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, the famous aviators. After which it was turned into a rehabilitation center. The home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
Construction
The Lindberghs built Highfields in 1931 on a secluded spot of the Sourland Mountain so as to escape the spotlight brought on by their celebrity status. After his pioneering solo flight from New York to Paris in 1927, four million people had attended the ticker tape parade in Charles Lindbergh's honor, and he had received two million congratulatory telegrams, making him one of the most famous Americans of the century. The Sourland Mountain location, while secluded, afforded easy access by air and automobile to the Lindberghs' offices in New York City and to the laboratories of nearby Princeton University, to which they had been granted access.
Rehabilitation center
The headquarters of the search for Charles Lindbergh, Jr. was in the garage of Highfields. After Lindbergh identified the body of his son they left the house never to spend another night there, returning to Anne's family home in Englewood, New Jersey. The attention from the trial led the Lindberghs to a self-imposed exile in Europe from 1935 to 1939. In June 1933, Anne wrote that the house would be turned over to a board of trustees, and she named it "Highfields," saying the name carried some secret meaning. One biographer has speculated that it commemorates the young Lindbergh's special greeting to his father.
In 1941 the home was conveyed to the State of New Jersey by the Highfields Association, in memory of Charles Lindbergh. It has been used since July 1, 1952 as a juvenile rehabilitation center by the New Jersey Department of Corrections.