By 1812Blockhouse
Malabar Farm State Park will host its annual Candlelight Holiday Tours on December 5, 6, 12, and 13 from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM, with additional afternoon tours on December 7 and 14 from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM. The Big House takes on a warm, early-winter glow during these weekends, and the quieter pace makes it easier to imagine what this place meant to its owner, Louis Bromfield.
A Home Built Around Ideas
Visitors move through the 32-room home at their own speed, with volunteers offering short introductions in each room. The house was finished in 1939, but Bromfield and architect Louis Lamoreux intentionally designed it to look older, borrowing details from historic homes around Ohio. The effect is subtle: a bit of Western Reserve here, a touch of Greek Revival there, as if the house had been expanded decade by decade.
Much of the décor is original, including Bromfield’s antiques, art, and custom wallpaper. The rooms also recall the house’s most famous occasion: the 1945 wedding of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, with Bromfield standing as best man.
Bromfield’s Larger Legacy
The Big House is only part of the story. Bromfield (1896–1956) was a complicated figure: a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who lived among the literary crowd in Paris, yet chose to root his later life in the soil of rural Ohio. He earned the Pulitzer in 1927 for his novel Early Autumn, but increasingly used his fame for a different purpose.
Malabar Farm became his platform for what he called the “new agriculture,” a response to the worn-out fields and erosion that helped trigger the Dust Bowl. Bromfield championed practices like contour plowing, cover crops, managed pastures, and careful water management. Today we’d label it sustainable or organic agriculture; in his time, it was stubbornly ahead of its moment. Walking through the house during the holiday tours, it’s easy to forget that the farm outside those windows was once a working laboratory for ideas that spread far beyond Richland County.
Ending With a Simple Treat
Tours end with cookies and warm drinks at the Visitor Center, where tickets are sold for $6.00 for adults and $4.00 for children.
If You Go
Malabar Farm State Park is open daily from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM and is located at 4050 Bromfield Road in Lucas. The park office can provide the most current updates on tour availability or weather-related changes.
