Claude Rains, the Gentleman Farmer By Raquel Stecher
In 1967, actor Claude Rains was laid to rest next to his wife Rosemary in Red Hill Cemetery, situated in the tiny New Hampshire town of Moultonborough. His gravesite is just a few miles away from his farmhouse in nearby Sandwich. Built in 1850, The Weed House is a gorgeous Greek Revival style home with an adjacent barn. It was here that Rains spent the last few years of his life taking care of Rosemary, who died of cancer in 1964, tending the land and enjoying the solitude of rustic life. How did the British-born actor—who became the toast of the film industry and would go on to earn four Academy Award nominations for his roles in MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (‘39), CASABLANCA (‘42), MR. SKEFFINGTON (‘44) and NOTORIOUS (‘46)—wind up in such a small town so far away from the bright lights of Hollywood?
Rains had a tumultuous childhood and at an early age got a job as a call boy for a local theatre. The majority of his earnings went back to his impoverished family, and what little was left for himself went to food and transportation. He would often go to bed hungry and sometimes would walk the distances to and from work just to be able to afford a little extra food. The volatility of theatre work and the lack of resources in his home life must have made Claude Rains long for stability. After working up the ladder in the theatre world, Rains became a successful stage actor. He moved to the U.S. in the 1920s with his third wife, actress Beatriz Thomas.
Once settled, he bought a farm in Lambertville, NJ. When that home burned down, he moved around and eventually settled in Pennsylvania. According to Rains biographer David J. Skal, with the onset of the Great Depression, Rains felt that having a homestead, somewhere he could grow his own food, was a good back-up in case his acting career ever fell through. When Hollywood came calling, Rains made the practical decision of transitioning to the more lucrative film business. However, he was never really interested in making Los Angeles his home. After marrying his fourth wife Frances Propper, he split his time between Hollywood and Pennsylvania. Rains was quoted as saying “Hollywood to me is a place to work. Home is Chester County.”
Rains crisscrossed the country, working in Hollywood and retreating to a much quieter life in rural Pennsylvania. He bought Stock Grange Farm, a colonial farmhouse built in 1747 which sat on almost 400 acres of land in West Bradford Township. There he, his wife and daughter Jennifer (who later went by the name Jessica Rains professionally), raised cattle, chickens and pigs, churned butter and harvested grains and vegetables. Rains was a great student of agriculture, kept scrapbooks on farm life and would even bring books on farming with him on movie sets to study in between takes. He much preferred the quiet life of the farmer, and while he relished his work as an actor, he was not interested in being a Hollywood celebrity. When Rains’ workload increased in the 1940s, he bought a modest home in Beverly Hills. According to Skal, when Warner Bros. terminated his contract, “Rains was happy to be a free agent and more than happy to give up his residence in Los Angeles and base himself, Frances and Jennifer permanently in Pennsylvania. Thereafter, when asked by her schoolmates what her father did for a living, Jennifer would reply, ‘He’s a farmer.’”
When Rains and Frances divorced in 1957, Rains sold his beloved Stock Grange and moved into the smaller Hawthorne House in West Chester. With Rains’ acting career winding down in the early 1960s, he moved with his sixth wife, Rosemary, up to New Hampshire. In the 1940s and 1950s, Rains had taken family trips up to New Hampshire where Jennifer had spent summers at camp. Rains had fond memories of those trips and asked a realtor to find him a home similar to Hawthorne House in the Lake Winnipesaukee region. He purchased the beautiful Weed House where he and Rosemary settled in. It was perfect for Rains, who was drawn to quiet, secluded places. When Rosemary became ill, Rains bought a lake-side cottage so Rosemary would have a nice view of the water, but according to Skal, they had to return to the farmhouse a couple of months later due to inclement weather. Rains took great care of Weed House. According to the Sandwich Historical Society, “Claude Rains believed one should honor the integrity of historic houses and barns; he restored but never remodeled any home in which he lived.”
Rains enjoyed the privacy Sandwich had to offer and for the most part kept a low profile. When tourists came to town asking where Rains lived, locals, who had the utmost respect for Rains, would claim they didn’t know. After Rosemary died in 1964, Rains returned to acting briefly only to retreat to the Weed House due to illness. He died in 1967 at the Lakes Region Hospital in Laconia, NH. His tombstone reads “All things once, Are things forever, Soul, once living, lives forever.” Rains never had to sacrifice his love for agriculture and rural life for his love of acting and ultimately proved he could live his life on his own terms.
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