The remarkable story of Edward Francis Searles and the estate he built for the ages.
Edward Francis Searles was born on July 4, 1841, in Methuen, Massachusetts — the third child of Jesse and Sarah Searles. His father worked in a local cotton mill and operated a small farm on Lawrence Street, the same land that would one day become one of New England's most extraordinary estates.
At thirteen, Searles went to work in a cotton mill himself to support his widowed mother and brother. But his passion lay elsewhere — in art, music, and the beauty of finely crafted spaces. By his early twenties he was teaching piano and organ in Bath, Maine. In 1875, after an apprenticeship with a Boston firm, he joined the prestigious Herter Brothers of New York City as an interior decorator.
In 1881, on a project in San Francisco, Searles met Mary Hopkins — the widow of railroad magnate Mark Hopkins, part-owner of the Central Pacific Railroad. Despite a 22-year age difference, their relationship deepened over years of shared travel and collaboration. They married on November 8, 1887 in New York City. He was forty-seven; she was sixty-seven.
When Mary Hopkins died in 1891, Searles inherited her vast estate — real estate holdings in San Francisco, New York, Great Barrington, and Methuen, plus railroad and bank stocks totaling $21 million. The inheritance, after a contested legal battle with Mary's adopted son Timothy Hopkins, left Searles one of the wealthiest men in America.
With his fortune secured, Searles turned his attention to Methuen — and specifically to transforming his father's modest farm on Lawrence Street into something extraordinary. He hired Henry Vaughan, the renowned English-Gothic architect who would later co-design the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and together they set about creating a rambling 25-acre estate unlike anything New England had seen.
Over three decades, Searles built a 74-room mansion called Pine Lodge, a breathtaking brownstone chapel (which contains his grave), a granite chime tower, carriage houses, barns, and more than two dozen eclectic structures. He imported marble and artifacts from Europe. He persuaded the town to let him close streets to expand his property. He built Methuen a high school and a music hall. He bought the local newspaper.
Searles spared no expense. The quality of materials and workmanship was, as observers noted at the time, second to none. He once boasted that Methuen had become a tourist attraction — people came from across the region just to see his walls and estate on Lawrence Street.
Edward Searles died on August 6, 1920. He left the Methuen estate to his distant cousin's family on the condition they change their name to Searles — a provision that led to years of legal contestation. The main house was tragically razed in the 1930s, but the remaining twelve structures survived.
In 1957, the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary acquired the estate, operating Presentation of Mary Academy — a beloved Catholic high school that educated thousands of Methuen students over six decades — until its closure in 2020. The Sisters were dedicated stewards, maintaining the property for nearly seventy years.
But in 2022, facing an uncertain future, the Sisters entered into an agreement with Pulte Homes, a developer who proposed demolishing Pine Lodge and the oldest buildings to construct 151 garden-style apartment units. The historic heart of the estate would have been lost forever.
Under pressure from then-Mayor Neil Perry and a groundswell of community opposition, Pulte Homes withdrew from the project in December 2023. Weeks later, with the estate's future still uncertain, Mayor Perry negotiated the City's purchase of the 19-acre property for $3.25 million — a fraction of its $10 million assessed value — including $1 million in historic artifacts belonging to Edward Searles.
The purchase was completed in November 2024 under Mayor D.J. Beauregard, who has committed to the same goal: restore, preserve, and protect the Searles Estate as a crown jewel of Methuen's history. A Future Use Advisory Committee has been established, an RFP process is underway, and the community is being asked to shape what this extraordinary place becomes next.