Castle Hill Concours d'Elegance - September, 2001
By Pete Wadsworth

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Sunday September 23 is the seventh annual Castle Hill Concours d’Elegance at the Crane Estate in Ipswich, MA. This is the ultimate location for a car show and is considered to be the “Pebble Beach of the East”. Castle Hill is part of The Crane Estate, which is comprised of over 2,000 acres along the Essex and Ipswich River estuaries. The Crane Estate includes Castle Hill, Crane Beach, and the Crane Wildlife Refuge. Together, these unique landscapes once formed the early 20th-century summer country estate of Chicago industrialist, Richard T. Crane Jr., and his family. The 59-room Stuart-style mansion known as The Great House rests high atop Castle Hill and is complimented by stunning landscape architecture, panoramic ocean and marsh views and the undulating Grand Allée, the ½ mile long rolling lawn leading to the Atlantic Ocean. At this event you will find hundreds of vintage and classic cars to view. The event is from 9:00am – 3:00pm and the cost is $20 per person.  To check out the event on the web go to: www.castlehillconcours.com
 

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Event Review
By Jim Guyot

Our last event of the year was held on Sunday September 23 at the seventh annual Castle Hill Concours d’Elegance at the Crane Estate in Ipswich, MA. If you’ve never been to this event, it is well worth attending. Ellie and I packed a picnic lunch and strapped the picnic basket to the luggage rack and headed off around 8:00am on a beautiful, but very cool morning. Bob Peate, in his 1960 MGA, joined us for the ride to Ipswich where we stopped by Pete Wadsworth’s home and joined up with Pete, Christina Abbott, and John Rizza for the short drive to the event. Pete knew all of the back roads so we didn’t encounter any traffic as we made our way to the estate entrance. This is where you begin to see how large this event really is. It took us approximately 10 – 15 minutes to get from the front gate to the “Grand Allee” where we were able to park our cars and then sit back and watch all of the “classic” cars arrive. I would estimate there had to be close to 500+ cars at this event! They were lined up along the entire half mile of the “Grand Allee” on both sides and down the middle, plus when they ran out of room, they had to park some of them in an adjoining field! It was great seeing these beautiful cars that were from the early 1900’s to the 1970’s. Some of the more notable cars were Bugattis, Packards, Pierce Arrows, Bentleys, Rolls Royces, Mercedes, AC Cobra’s, and Ferraris. Though most of the cars were American, there were also some very fine examples of British and European cars to review as we walked around the grounds.
  
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We also met several club members at the show. Gardner Hall was there with his beautiful 1957 MGA coupe. Steve Mackay was there with his recent Stowe winner, a 1974 TR6 and Larry Swift in his 1951 MGTD. We also bumped into Bob Freerksen who was there, sans MGA, checking out all of the classic cars.

Ellie and I also got a chance to tour the 59 room Stuart Style mansion know as the Great House which rest high atop Castle Hill. This is a beautiful mansion dating back to 1927 and well worth the tour.

This is definitely an event we will want to add to the club’s calendar for next year. It’s a great place to visit, have a picnic, and just “car watch”!!