Architectural Styles

Louis T. Graves Memorial Library // 1813

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What is known today as the public library of Kennebunkport, the Louis T. Graves Memorial Library was not always used for books and learning. Built in 1813 as a branch office of the Kennebunk National Bank, the brick structure was valuable as a local bank for the growing port neighborhood. By 1831, the Kennebunk Bank’s charter was revoked and they sold their branch location to the U.S. Government as a Customs House (the second floor was already partially occupied as a Customs House). By the end of the 19th century, the second floor was leased out to the Kennebunkport Public Library. The Customs District was eliminated in 1913, and by 1920, the building was acquired by Mr. and Mrs. Abbott Graves, who purchased the property at auction for $1,350., the couple lived just a couple blocks away in a rare Prairie style home. In 1921, the Graves family deeded the property to the Library Association on the condition that the Library be named in memory of their deceased son Louis T. Graves who valued books all his life.

Davis House-Aunt Felicia’s Folly // 1805

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If you stroll down Maine Street in Kennebunkport, you cant help but notice the most charming saltbox house. Constructed in 1805 by Samuel Davis, a master builder in Kennebunkport, the Federal home likely had a saltbox roof originally which would have housed the kitchen. After the Civil War, the home was owned by Silas Perkins, who then sold the home to his daughter, Felicia (Perkins) Cleaves and her husband, Albert, a teacher. By the 1870s, Felicia had the Colonial home completely renovated, turning into a Gothic Revival showpiece. Mrs. Cleaves added a new wing to the right of the original house, for she desired the high ceilings that were common during the Victorian era. The building became known in town as “Aunt Felicia’s Folly” and alternately, “the Witch House.” In 1966, owners restored the home back to what it likely looked like before the 1870s renovation, adding a saltbox roof.

Undated image showing “Aunt Felicia’s Folly” with Gothic alterations.

South Congregational Church // 1824

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Built in 1824, the South Church in Kennebunkport Village looked very much as it does today, with the exception of the portico, which was added in 1912. In the early 19th century, architects were seldom employed in such remote areas therefore, builders often used manuals and examples of other churches in addition to their own experience gained from working the large shipbuilding yards adjacent to the Kennebunk River. The cupola, restored in 1991, is designed after an example by Christopher Wren and the steeple retains the original 1824 Aaron Willard clock with its unique wooden face, still keeps accurate time and rings on the hour. The church remains as an active space with a growing congregation in the summer months.

St. Martha’s Catholic Church // 1903

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A happy blending of Mission, Colonial Revival and Shingle Styles for the Maine coastal community of Kennebunkport, the St. Martha’s Catholic Church exemplifies the charm of this town. The church is sited on a corner lot with a belfry at its corner. The nave features a central entry with Colonial pilasters and pediment above the second floor windows. The roofline is shaped with Mission style parapet walls and arched openings at the tower, showcasing the Spanish influence in the design. The entire building is wrapped with cedar shingles, as a nod to the coastal summer resort it resides. The church operated here until the mid-late 20th century when it was converted to an art gallery, and now is home to condos.

The Kedge // 1887

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Located in the Cape Arundel Summer colony in Kennebunkport, this Shingle style cottage, built in 1887 sits perched on a hill with views of the Atlantic Ocean. Built for John Bach McMaster, a historian who was also a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the house was the first of two he owned in Kennebunkport, where he summered. The son of a former Mississippi plantation owner, McMaster grew up in New York City and worked his way through the City College of New York. Although he obtained a degree in civil engineering in 1873, he was deeply interested in American history. He worked briefly as a civil engineer in Virginia and Chicago in 1873, but he returned to New York the following year and earned a meagre living by tutoring.

McMaster was appointed assistant professor of civil engineering at Princeton University in 1877. Meanwhile, he planned to write a broad-scale history of the United States. In the summer of 1878 he led an expedition to the American West, an experience that impressed on him the pioneers’ efforts and the need for a social history of the West. His inspiration materialized in 1881 with the completion of the first chapter of A History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War. The earnings from the series gave him substantial wealth and he then bought a summer residence up in Maine seen here.

If anyone knows the architect of this house, please share!

Melville Walker House // 1860

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Built for Melville Walker, a sea captain on land gifted to him by his father, this home perfectly exhibits the changing dynamic of Kennebunkport. Melville Walker would often be out at sea for months at a time, and he apparently brought along his wife, three daughters and son on many trips to ports all over the world. The Italianate home was eventually sold out of the family, and by 1901, it was purchased by George Little, an executive with the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. That year, he had the summer home renovated with Colonial Revival detailing, including the hipped roof, dormer, and other detailing. The belvedere, 2/2 windows, and Victorian era porch were retained, showing the original form and detailing of the Italianate version. In the 1950s, the home was converted to an inn, with small cottages constructed surrounding the property to house additional families. Today, Maine Stay Inn & Cottages welcomes families from all over the world to experience the beauty of Kennebunkport.

Westlook // 1905

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One of a handful of Prairie style homes in Maine, the Abbott Graves House – named ‘Westlook‘ – of Kennebunkport, was designed by Graves himself and built in 1905. The two-story residence is of frame construction with a low-hipped metal roof (originally red tile) and three internal brick chimneys. The exterior is covered with a simulated stucco finish.

Born in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1859, Graves began architectural studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1867 but was forced to leave due to financial problems before completing the program. For a few years he supported himself by working in a florist’s establishment where he earned a reputation as an arranger of flowers for interior decoration. An amateur painter since early youth, he began in earnest to develop this talent, concentrating on floral still life. He was eventually able to support himself in a small Boston studio and in 1884 to 1887 studied in Paris. His work was exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1887 and received the first of five medals he was to be awarded by that illustrious institution. Returning to Boston in 1889, he opened his own school and established himself as a distinguished painter of floral scenes and genre works. He brought his family and some students to Kennebunkport for the first time in the summer of 1891 staying at one of the first hotels in that newly emerging resort community. Graves fell in love with the community spending more and more time there each year until eventually he became a year round resident. In 1905 he designed Westlook, as he named it, and resided there until his death in 1936.

Ivory Goodwin House // c.1808

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Built by Ivory Goodwin (1783-1851), a joiner who moved to Kennebunkport from Berwick, Maine in 1799. Goodwin and his wife Mary, lived in this small Cape house with their six children, a pretty amazing feat in its own right! The Federal/Greek Revival home is five bays wide with a central entry with sidelights and pilasters flanking.

Captain George Nowell House // 1854

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Captain George W. Nowell and his wife, Frances, the daughter of the wealthy Capt. William Jefferds, built this elegant Italianate style home in 1854 that stands on Temple Street, next door to the Kennebunkport Post Office. George was a sea captain, following in his father’s footsteps and also invested in several of the ships he sailed, but had the fiscal foresight to insure his interests against loss. His prized ship was named “Tropic” and she was launched in 1855, less than a year after his house was built. On a cold December day in 1862, Nowell, captaining The Tropic left Philadelphia with a cargo of coal for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company in San Francisco. She and her crew of 20 were never heard from again. George was not yet 40 when he perished. His youngest son, Frank, never met his father and was only 8 years-old when his mother passed in 1872. Shipbuilder David Clark bought their Temple Street home and George’s brother took his children to live in Bangor.

The captain’s reputation as a prudent and charitable man was recognized by Victoria, Queen of England. She awarded Capt. George W. Nowell, of the ship Tropic, an engraved spyglass in testimony of his humanity in rescuing her subjects, the crew of the Village Belle, of Nova Scotia. The telescope and a certificate, signed by the Queen, have been proudly protected by the Kennebunkport Historical Society.

The family home features bold corner quoins, bracketed door and window hoods, and paired rounded arch windows at the top floor.

Lyric Theater // 1919

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One of the more identifiable buildings in Dock Square in Kennebunkport Village is one of the first you typically see when arriving from neighboring Kennebunk. The wood-frame building perched on stilts at the edge of the Kennebunk River features a prominent pyramidal roof and stunning windows. Through some digging, it appears the building was built in 1919 as the Lyric Theater, a 350-seat motion-picture cinema, that catered to the summer residents. Sometime after the 1970s, the theater was converted to retail use and now is home to Saxony Imports a place where you can pick up some presidential swag, gag gifts, or touristy clothing.

Gideon Walker Farmhouse // 1745

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One of the older extant homes in Kennebunkport is the Gideon Walker Farmhouse, built in 1745. The home once sat on a larger parcel of land, on the outside of the village, which at the time, only had a handful of other homes nearby. At the time, the town was named Arundel, and was later renamed Kennebunkport, in reflection to its economy becoming one of shipbuilding and trade along the Kennebunk River. As the village population grew, the Walker land was sold off and developed for other large estates. The Georgian house featured a small, one-story projecting entry, typical of the period. In 1910, owner Anson McKim of Montreal, hired Portland architect John Calvin Stevens to update the home, which included the addition of the front entry’s second story and a large side addition approximating the size and location of the former barn which once stood there. The home has since been renovated a few more times on the interior and exterior, yet it still retains its historic integrity.

John Hovey Perkins House // c.1850

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This large house in Kennebunkport Village was built in the 19th century for John Hovey Perkins (1804-1859). The Federal home was constructed sometime in the early 19th century, and by 1857, it was updated by the local master-builder, Bernard Littlefield, who likely added the two-story columned side porch and other detailing. The home was originally located at the corner of Green and Pleasant Streets, across from the Captain Lord Mansion, and was moved in 1900 to its present location on South Street. The house was converted to a bed & breakfast, known as The Inn on South Street, and it has seemingly been converted back to a single-family home.

Old State House // 1713

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Nestled among the towering skyscrapers of Downtown Boston, the Old State House stands proudly, giving us a glimpse into pre-Revolutionary life and events. Happy Fourth of July!

Built in 1713, the “Town House” as it was originally known, served as a merchants’ exchange on the first floor and the seat of colonial and later state government on the second floor throughout the 1700s. The royal governor, appointed by the King of Great Britain, held his office in the building until 1775, and from the balcony gave voice via decrees and speeches to the King 3000 miles removed from London. Above the balcony, a lion and unicorn—royal symbols of the King of Great Britain—graced the main façade facing the public square.

“A cobblestone circle beneath the Old State House balcony marks the site of the 1770 Boston Massacre. Tensions ran high in Boston in early 1770. More than 2,000 British soldiers occupied the city of 16,000 colonists and tried to enforce Britain’s tax laws, like the Stamp Act and Townshend Acts. American colonists rebelled against the taxes they found repressive, rallying around the cry, “no taxation without representation.” On the frigid, snowy evening of March 5, 1770, Private Hugh White was the only soldier guarding the King’s money stored inside the Custom House on King Street. It wasn’t long before angry colonists joined him and insulted him and threatened violence. Calling reinforcements, a group of British soldiers stood near the Town House and were pelted with snowballs and rocks, with one soldier firing out of panic. Once the first shot rang out, other soldiers opened fire, killing five colonists–including Crispus Attucks, a local dockworker of mixed racial heritage–and wounding six. The event was one of the flashpoints which began the American Revolution.

Six years later, on July 18, 1776, Colonel Thomas Crafts read the Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the Old State House as a statement of strength from where the King’s declarations were given just years prior.

Nauset Coast Guard Station // 1936

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Located at one of my favorite beaches in New England, the aptly named Coast Guard Beach, the Nauset Coast Guard Station is an imposing Colonial Revival structure perched upon the bluffs providing sweeping views of the shoreline. The Nauset Coast Guard Station was built in 1936 to replace a late nineteenth century Coast Guard Station which had stood further eastward and north, on land which has been eroded away by the ocean. The present structure was reportedly commissioned after Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morganthau Jr. and his fellow picnickers were driven in 1935 by a summer thunderstorm to seek shelter in the old and antiquated Coast Guard Station, built after the Civil War. Construction of the new station was authorized several weeks after this incident as Morganthau, who spent summers on Cape Cod, took a personal interest in the building’s construction, visiting the site during the summer of 1936.

This area of beaches has had a tradition of assistance to shipwrecked sailors. In 1802, the country’s first all volunteer life saving organization, the Massachusetts Humane Society, erected a hut on this beach. It was replaced by a larger one in 1855 and by the Nauset Life Saving Station in 1872. The building was added on to and moved twice before it was replaced by the present structure in 1936. The building was occupied by the Coast Guard as a station until 1958. It now is home to an education center as part of the Cape Cod National Seashore.

Preserved Gardner Farmhouse // ca.1820-2024

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UPDATE: The Preserved Gardner House was demolished in 2024 by the Town of Swansea.

This old farmhouse in Swansea, MA, was built by 1820 for Preserved Gardner (1795-1873), one of five sons of Peleg Gardner, who owned much of Gardners Point. Preserved lived in the home until his death in 1873, and the home and acres of farmland were willed to his only son to live past childhood, Ira Gardner (1836-1901). Ira donated a large tract of land adjacent to the farmhouse to the town in 1882 for a cemetery, in which his father was buried. Later, the farm was purchased by Thomas D. Covel a bank president of Fall River who operated it as a gentleman’s farm and made the house his summer home. A ‘gentleman farmer‘ utilized their farms for pleasure rather than for sustenance or profit. After WWII, the land was purchased by the town to be used as a park and the property is still owned by the town. The Federal home with its veranda that wraps around the side has been neglected by the town for decades while the parks adjacent are maintained adequately.

The town has weighed various options for the home ranging from demolishing it, to preserving the front facade and converting it to a garage and storage shed (with a small museum on the second floor). I hate that idea personally. This seems like an ideal candidate for the town to allow a private individual or developer to move the home and restore it back to its original grandeur. Thoughts?