The Pierce Manse on Horseshoe Pond Lane is the only home Franklin Pierce ever owned. He lived here with his wife Jane and their three sons during his years as a Concord lawyer, before moving on to Washington as US senator and eventually to the White House. The house is modest by the standards of presidential homes — a square Greek Revival cottage with neat shutters and a small garden — and the tour is intimate and unpretentious.
Volunteer guides lead 45-minute tours from mid-June through Labour Day, with an emphasis on the family's domestic life and Pierce's complicated legacy. The Manse is run entirely by the volunteer Pierce Brigade, an organisation founded in 1966 to save the building from demolition. Admission is modest. It is the only presidential home in the state and a quietly affecting one.