Word: franklin
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Compared to the aristocratic homes of other U.S. founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin's house at 36 Craven Street in London is downright modest. George Washington inhabited a grand estate at Mount Vernon, Virginia, and Thomas Jefferson built Monticello, an elegant mansion, in the same state. But for 15 years, Franklin was a tenant in a simple four- story Georgian brick row house on a street off the Strand near Trafalgar Square. The house's interior is handsome but spare, reflecting the thrifty nature of the man who popularized the proverb, "A penny saved is a penny earned...
Compared to the aristocratic homes of other U.S. founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin's house at 36 Craven Street in London is downright modest. George Washington inhabited a grand estate at Mount Vernon, Virginia, and Thomas Jefferson built Monticello, an elegant mansion, in the same state. But for 15 years, Franklin was a tenant in a simple four-story Georgian brick row house on a street off the Strand near Trafalgar Square. The house's interior is handsome but spare, reflecting the thrifty nature of the man who popularized the proverb, "A penny saved is a penny earned...
...Franklin arrived in London in 1757 as the Pennsylvania Assembly's agent, and apart from a two year gap (during which he returned to Philadelphia) lived there until 1775. During his residence, the house functioned as a de facto U.S. embassy and the center of the American polymath's intellectual and social activities. He entertained Enlightenment thinkers in the sitting room, and in 1775 held negotiations there with William Pitt the Elder. When those failed, he fled London under threat of arrest...
...Visitors can take a narrated multimedia tour through the basement and first two floors. "This is not a museum with stuff behind glass and people peering over the red ropes,'' Balisciano says, citing the accompanying sound-and-light show that recaps Franklin's London years. After three centuries, the house in which he spent them has been reinvented. benjaminfranklinhouse.org
...Benjamin Franklin: An American Life,” by Walter Isaacson. (Simon & Schuster, 2003.) He invented the lightning rod, the bifocal, the Franklin stove, the fire department, and the safety school (Penn...