Rock Pond

PART ONE

Lucien, Moe and Their Family Build Two Homes on Rock Pond in the 1950’s

The two summer homes built by the Caron Brothers on Rock Pond in Windham NH

The Carons were a French Canadian family from Quebec who emigrated to Nashua NH. Robert Caron relates that, “Lucien and his older brother were born in Canada. My father, Moe and two sisters were born in Nashua. When my father got married, he bought a house in Nashua big enough for the whole family. We occupied the second floor apartment and my grandparents, and all the uncles and aunts lived downstairs. The oldest uncle moved out, Grandpa died and that left grandma, Moe Lucien, Cis, and Dot living together. After the war, the uncles must have felt the need for some personal space and found land on Rock Pond in Windham. They bought two lots at first but even that was too close so they bought another with no-man’s land between them. It seems they were looking for space but not too much space. They designed and built two houses with the help of my father and a few friends. Lucien was a wood worker, Moe was a machinist, and my father was an auto body mechanic. Between them, there was nothing they couldn’t build. The stone walls and stairways were built from stones that came from an excavation around Robinson Pond in Hudson. Moe had a dump truck at the time to move all the stones. Lucien was in charge of planing and milling the lumber for siding and interior trim work. Lucien submitted his house design to Mechanix Illustrated magazine and won their Golden Hammer award.”

Pictured below are the two summer homes that the Caron brothers built on Rock Pond. Moe’s is pictured on the left, and Lucien’s which won the Golden Hammer award is pictured on the right.

“Mechanix Illustrated was an American magazine founded in 1928 to compete against the older Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. Billed as “The How-To-Do Magazine,” Mechanix Illustrated aimed to guide readers through various projects from home improvements and advice on repairs to “build-your-own (sports car, telescope, helicopter, etc).” It was headquartered in New York City. Although it featured many how-to articles, the most eagerly awaited and read features were Tom McCahill’s monthly automobile tests which ran from the late 1940s to the early 1970s.” Wikipedia