September 4, 2026
By Clementina Verge Photographs
by Lisa Nichols
Set atop Jefferson hill, the highest point in Litchfield, Topsmead State Forest invites visitors to step into history as they follow a gravel path that winds beneath cherry and crabapple trees and leads to an English Tudor cottage. The former country estate of Edith Morton Chase remains remarkably and purposefully unchanged since the day she left it “for the pleasure and enjoyment of the people of Connecticut.” Inside, each room also looks untouched. Hundreds of books line the shelves, her calling book rests beside the telephone, and a desk calendar is open to 1972, the final year of her life.
Such carefully preserved details reveal as much about Chase as any biography. Born into a prominent Waterbury, Connecticut, family in 1891, she spent summers on North Street in Litchfield. In 1917, her father, Henry Chase, president of Chase Brass & Copper Company, gifted her 16 acres where she built a rustic cabin.
Her vision evolved through years of travel and was especially shaped by the Cotswolds. To bring it to life, she commissioned architect Richard Henry Dana Jr. to design a Tudor Revival residence that incorporated the original cabin’s fireplace and stonework. Crafted of cypress, slate, copper, and oak, the house reflects her affection for English country living, and antiques from abroad blend seamlessly with American Arts and Crafts furnishings.
Surrounding the home, formal gardens by pioneering landscape architect Ellen Shipman offer a graceful transition to woodlands, open fields, and carriage paths that reflect each season’s beauty.
The setting is as compelling as the visionary who so thoughtfully shaped it. A widely traveled and fiercely independent philanthropist, Chase could find her way home from anywhere in Rome, and listened to opera and baseball with equal enthusiasm. She also cherished evenings ending with daiquiris and friends, gathered on the western veranda overlooking the Litchfield Hills.
Never married and childless, Chase made one final, extraordinary gesture: she entrusted Topsmead to the “people of Connecticut” with the stipulation that her beloved retreat remain forever protected “in a state of natural beauty.”
More than 50 years later, that vision endures. Stewarded by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection along with the Friends of Topsmead State Forest, the estate remains intentionally uncommercialized, designated as a state forest rather than a park.
Visitors experience the estate as Chase intended, with seasonal house tours and year-round access to a landscape where wildlife thrives in established forests and birdsong silences everyday noise.
“Topsmead is a 510-acre environmental oasis and cultural treasure steeped in the past. It offers the perfect portrait of Miss Edith’s idyllic life in Litchfield,” notes Colleen Stradtman, vice president of the Friends of Topsmead Board of Directors. “Because of her extraordinary generosity, it will remain here for the people of Connecticut to enjoy in every season, in perpetuity.”
More than a historic house or scenic preserve, Topsmead is a portrait of a life shaped with intention, where history, architecture, ecology, and legacy merge to offer visitors the same tranquility that first captivated Chase more than a century ago. —friendsoftopsmead.org
