craftsman style

John Smith House // c.1895

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Hull, Massachusetts is an often overlooked town (besides Nantasket Beach Reservation), but there are some really great old houses and buildings to be found in the seaside town. This is the John Smith House on Meade Avenue in the Atlantic Hill neighborhood inland from the peninsular part of town. Development here was fairly slow, but took-off in the late 19th century when cottagers began to develop some house lots here. They were soon joined by year-round residents like John Smith, an ice merchant who built this home around 1895. Craftsman in style, the house exhibits a mix of building materials with a rough fieldstone porch and two matching stone chimneys together with wood shingle siding. The stunning stonework extends from the foundation, uniting the house to its terraced, rocky site. It is one of a handful of homes here that have not yet been altered or covered up by vinyl siding.

Megunticook Clubhouse // 1901

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As coastal communities in Maine’s mid-coast began to see more wealthy summer residents, these enclaves of cottages needed clubhouses and spaces to spend their summer days. In 1899, Philadelphian (and Rockport summer resident) Charles Wolcott Henry converted a section of his oceanfront summer estate at Rockport’s Beauchamp Point to a newly established golf club which quickly outcompeted all others nearby. Within a few years, Boston architect Charles H. Brigham, was hired to design this Craftsman style clubhouse that sits on an elevated site with an expansive wraparound veranda providing views of the new course and the Penobscot Bay. The rubble-stone foundation and walls clad in brown-stained shingles are well suited to the rugged coastal Maine site. The golf course, also designed in 1901, was planned by groundskeeper Thomas Grant as a 9-hole course. The recreational complex has been meticulously preserved and is a great example of a turn-of-the-century clubhouse in coastal Maine. The 1901 clubhouse is also said to be the oldest golf building in Maine!