Blue Hill Maine

Barncastle // 1884

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Barncastle, located in the Town of Blue Hill, Maine, is an elaborate and distinctive house. Designed by George A. Clough and built in 1884, the building is a sprawling complex in the Shingle style with additional eccentric details. As Blue Hill and other coastal communities of Down East Maine saw popularity as summer colonies of wealthy city-dwellers flocking to the rugged coastline, many new residents either built new “cottages” or renovated older (often ancestral) homes. Effie Hinckley Ober (1843-1927) who was born in town, married Virgil P. Kline, personal attorney to John D. Rockefeller, and for thirty years worked as attorney for the Standard Oil Co. of Ohio. Effie founded the Boston Ideal Opera Company in 1879 and traveled with the group extensively, retiring in 1885, upon that time, she would move into Barncastle for summers (then named “Ideal Lodge” after her opera company). In 1884, before her retirement, Effie hired her childhood friend, architect George A. Clough, who was born in Blue Hill and worked in Boston, to completely redesign her ancestral home. Clough’s design engulfed a smaller Cape Cod-style house owned by Effie’s mother Mary Peters Hinckley Ober Atherton, a descendant of early Blue Hill settlers, creating an absolutely elegant Shingle-style summer cottage. The house is highly visible on a main street, but what many do not see is the arch-and-turret link between kitchen wing and carriage barn. “Barncastle” is now home to an elegant inn and restaurant!

Parker House // 1814

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Wrapping up this series on a tour of buildings in Blue Hill, Maine, we have two stunning old homes left! 

This landmark Federal style house was built sometime between 1812 and 1816 by Robert Parker, whose wife was a daughter of Joseph Wood, one of the first two white settlers of Blue Hill. The home is significant not only architecturally, but for its connections to a number of old settlers to Blue Hill and their families.

By the turn of the 20th century the farming, mining and granite producing town of Blue Hill had been discovered. Writers, artists, musicians, and wealthy urban families from all over the East Coast found inspiration or retreat in many coastal Maine communities including Blue Hill, building “cottages” to summer at. Not all those who arrived to Maine were ‘from away’, as many built new or renovated their old ancestral homes to be occupied when seeking the peace and tranquility of coastal Maine. The Parker House was no different. In 1900, it was renovated in the Colonial Revival style as a summer home for Frederick A. Merrill and his wife, Elizabeth, residents of Boston. The couple hired George A. Clough, who worked as the first City Architect of Boston, but grew up locally in Blue Hill. Mrs. Merrill was descended from Mrs. Robert Parker’s sister. The current owner, the Merrill’s great-grandson, has undertaken a restoration of the house which pays homage to its Colonial Revival past. The stunning house can even be rented!

East Blue Hill Library // 1920

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Every village needs a library, and East Blue Hill is no different! Without easy access to the main Blue Hill library, a group of “willing workers” amassed a collection of books with the hopes to donate to a future village library organization. A campaign to build the present building began in 1914 with the acquisition of land adjacent to the village post office, with major fundraising undertaken in 1917. The building, completed in 1920, was designed by John W. Merrow, a New York City theatrical architect and is an uncommon example of a small, Arts and Crafts style library in the state of Maine.

East Blue Hill Post Office // c.1884

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Before the days of USPS trucks delivering mail to your door, mail was delivered to local post offices for pick-up daily. Due to this, many villages had their own post offices to service local communities better due to ease of access by residents. A post office first arrived in East Blue Hill Village, Maine in 1873, likely due to the distance traveled to the central village for mail. By 1884, George Long built this vernacular structure as the village post office, which belonged to members of the Long family, who also served as postmasters, until 1997. The post office is distinct in the state as the only known example of a purpose-built post office facility that is not owned by the United States Postal Service, and that was not built or adapted to its standards. The building sold out of the Long family in 1997, when it was purchased by the East Blue Hill Village Improvement Association, who have preserved it ever-since!

Jonathan Fisher House // 1796

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Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847) was born in New Braintree, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard College Divinity School. In the record of Plantation No. 5, (now Blue Hill), the selectmen voted to invite the Rev. Mr. Fisher to preach for four months in the summer of 1795. After his four month stint, the committee approached him, asking if he would stay and make the town his home, he accepted. He first built a primitive house which was outgrown by the time he had three children growing up in it! He had the current home built in 1814, attaching the original home as a rear ell (addition). Reverend Fisher died in 1847. His wife Dolly, died in 1853. At the end of the nineteenth century, Jonathan Fisher’s grandchildren decided to renovate the house. In 1896, they tore down the original house of 1796 and replaced it with a two-story addition to their grandfather’s 1814, giving it the current configuration. When the Fisher grandchildren who had been living there left Blue Hill, a number of local citizens concerned for the future of the building made arrangements that eventually led to the transfer of ownership of the house to a local non-profit foundation, the Jonathan Fisher Memorial, and made it possible for the house to be opened to the public. The Fisher House is open for tours in the summer.

Clough-Hinckley House // 1832

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This charming Federal style cape in Blue Hill Maine was built in 1832 by Moses P. Clough, a sea captain seemingly as a wedding gift to his new bride of that year, Sally Prince. He resided in the home off-and-on between excursions and trips at sea until his untimely death at sea in 1836 of bilious fever, possibly caused by malaria. After his death, his widow Sally, remarried and moved to Cherryfield, Maine. The old family home was sold to Bushrod W. Hinckley, an attorney who was involved in the town affairs. Today, the old Clough-Hinckley home is known as Arborvine, a great restaurant known for using local, farm-to-table ingredients. The home is excellently preserved by the owners, down to the leaded glass fanlight and sidelights at the entrance. Swoon!

Holt House – Blue Hill Historical Society // 1815

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The Holt House in Blue Hill, Maine, was built in 1815 by Jeremiah Thorndike Holt, grandson of Nicholas Holt who brought Blue Hill’s fifth family from Andover, Massachusetts in 1765. Jeremiah was one of the first to locate at the head of the bay, in what is now the center of Blue Hill village. He was an influential businessman who kept a store at what became known as the Pendleton House, engaged in shipping, and became the town’s second postmaster. After Jeremiah died in 1832, his widow turned the house into the town’s only inn and tavern. In 1851 their son, Thomas Jefferson Napoleon Bonaparte Holt (what a name!) and his family occupied the house. It stayed in the family for over a hundred years until the Blue Hill Historical Society bought the Holt House and made it their headquarters in 1970. The Holt House remains as a well-preserved Federal style home in this part of Maine.

Thomas Lord House // 1847

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This 1847 Greek Revival home sits in Blue Hill Village, Maine and it was built by and for local architect and builder Thomas Lord (1805–1880), who is credited with bringing the classical motifs seen in Greek architecture to Blue Hill. Mr. Lord had little formal education, spending much of his youth grinding bark at Ellsworth, sailing and working on his uncle’s farm. When he was 22, he apprenticed himself to a carpenter and began working for George Stevens in the shipbuilding yards of Blue Hill. From 1828 to 1880, Thomas Lord worked on 83 vessels, 84 dwellings, 12 school buildings, 14 meeting houses, 10 stern moldings and figureheads, 250 coffins and many barns and sheds. Lord is especially known in the area for his churches, including remodeling the First Baptist Church of Blue Hill in 1856. Just before building the house, Thomas married Matilda Carlton (1811-1898) and the couple had three children while living in the home. When Thomas died in 1880, Thomas Lord’s elder son, Roscoe Granville Lord took up residence here, where the 1900 census lists him as a painter. The home remains extremely well preserved and is one of the finer homes in the village of Blue Hill.

Blue Hill Public Library //1938

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Some small town libraries really pack an architectural punch! Blue Hill had long had a public library building, which eventually outgrew its limited space in the 1895 Town Hall building. During the mid-late 1930s, in the depths of the Great Depression, plans began for a new library. Adelaide Pearson, who had moved to Blue Hill in 1928, took on the formidable task. She was described as “a small woman who got things done” and had a vision for a library that was an integral part of the community, serving more than as a place to store and retrieve books. To fulfill that dream, she organized a fundraising campaign to buy a vacant lot in town. Local pledges came in ranging from 25 cents to “one dollar or a day’s work.” With the help of librarian Anne Hinckley, Adelaide Pearson petitioned the federal government for funds from the Public Works Administration, part of the New Deal program. At last, in March of 1940, the Colonial Revival style library building designed by Bunker and Savage Architects of Augusta opened its doors. The library has been a centerpiece of life in the coastal town of Blue Hill ever since.

Pendleton House // 1826

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Large commercial blocks like this can really transport you back a century or more! The Pendleton House in Blue Hill, Maine was built in 1826 by Jonah and Jeremiah Holt. The brothers were born in Beverly, Massachusetts and their family settled in Blue Hill, likely to work in the shipbuilding industry. Originally called the Brick Block, the building was a storefront for the Holts. In the 1870s, the building had fallen into disrepair, and was seized from its owner, Frederick Holt (Jeremiah’s son), by the Blue Hill Academy, from whom Nathan Pendleton purchased the building. As an 1877 issue of The Ellsworth American stated: “Blue Hill needs a hotel. There have never been so many strangers and visitors. Five hundred men are working in the quarries.” From the massive demand for lodging in town, tied to industry, Pendleton opened the building as a hotel in 1878, possibly adding the mansard roof at that time. The building became known as the Pendleton House for a number of years and was purchased by John M. Snow in 1888, who added porches to the building. Sadly, the porches were removed in the 20th century, but the old Pendleton House remains a fixture in Blue Hill and is home to small businesses with housing above.