Old Man of the Mountain memorial Franconia
— — a face you find by standing in the right place.
Not only on a wall.
“Where the Old Man fell, the state built something stranger and quieter than a statue. Seven steel profilers along the lakeshore, set at precise heights and angles, so that a visitor walking the path can step up to one, look up at the empty cliff, and see the profile reassembled in the steel against the granite. It opened in 2011. The mountain is the same. The face is found by standing in the right place.
Old Man of the Mountain memorial Franconia, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Old Man of the Mountain Memorial sits at Profile Lake in Franconia Notch State Park, directly below the cliff on Cannon Mountain where the granite profile rested until 2003. The plaza was designed by sculptor Ron Magers and landscape architect Shelly Bradbury and opened on June 27, 2011, after eight years of fundraising by the Old Man of the Mountain Legacy Fund. The site sits beside Interstate 93 near Exit 34B, with a short paved walk from the parking area to the lakeshore plaza.
Seven stainless-steel profilers stand along the lakeside walk, each one a cutout of the Old Man's silhouette mounted on a tall pole. A visitor at the marked viewing footprint sights up through the cutout to the cliff overhead, and the steel profile aligns with the bare ledges where the granite face used to sit. Each profiler is set at a different height to suit visitors of different statures, including a low one for children and seated viewers. The plaza itself is paved with granite pavers donated by New Hampshire residents and engraved with their names.
The memorial is open daily, dawn to dusk, with no admission fee. Parking is the Profile Lake lot on Interstate 93 northbound near Exit 34B, with a separate southbound lot connected by a short tunnel. The walk to the plaza is paved and accessible. The Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway, the New England Ski Museum, and the Flume Gorge sit within a few miles. Mid-October brings the strongest foliage and the largest crowds. The lake itself is small, cold, and stocked with brook trout for catch-and-release fly fishing.