Downeast Maine Architecture

St. Christopher’s-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church // 1892

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In 1891, a proposal was made to build a summer Episcopal chapel, to be known as St. Christopher’s by the Sea, on Grindstone Neck in Winter Harbor, Maine. This project was supported by local area residents and by the summer community on Grindstone Neck. The construction of the church started in 1892, but it was not until August 6, 1893 that the first service was held in the chapel. The Rev. Julius Atwood, rector of St. James’ Church in Providence, Rhode Island, officiated and preached the first sermon. The church was designed by Lindley Johnson, a Philadelphia-based architect who also summered in a cottage on Grindstone Neck and designed other cottages in the colony. The Shingle style chapel is architecturally unique and rustic, a quality which is also visible at the interior, which is rustic in appearance with exposed beams and shingled walls.

Charles and Elizabeth Doremus Cottage // c.1892

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In 1889, the Gouldsboro Land Improvement Company, bought 300 acres of farmland to build a residential summer colony as an alternative to the busy Bar Harbor across the bay. They hired landscape architect Nathan Franklin Barrett to design the subdivision of 198 cottage lots of at least one acre and arranged them on roughly parallel roads, with a primary road (Grindstone Avenue) running the length of the peninsula’s spine through woodlands to dramatic ocean views at the tip. The summer colony has many great cottages and chapels tucked away on rocky outcroppings with towering spruce trees all around. This charming cottage was built for Charles Avery Doremus and his wife Elizabeth Ward Doremus around 1892. Charles was a scientist, the son of chemist and physician Robert Ogden Doremus. He graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1870. He became a professor in chemistry and became a leading specialist on toxicology, often called into court cases to help solve crimes. Elizabeth was a playwright from Kentucky and her father and his brother owned plantations in Mississippi before the American Civil War. The couple summered at this cottage on Grindstone Neck until Charles’ death in 1925. It is a great example of a rustic Shingle style summer cottage.

Egg Rock Lighthouse // 1875

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The Egg Rock Lighthouse sits in the middle of the Mt. Desert Narrows of Frenchman Bay between Bar Harbor and Winter Harbor. The lighthouse was constructed in 1875 to assist the already built Winter Harbor Lighthouse a short distance away, to provide guidance for the increased ferry traffic to Bar Harbor, which was quickly becoming a prominent summer colony. The architecturally unique lighthouse is comprised of a square tower projecting through the center of the square lighthouse keeper’s house, its unlike anything I have seen before. The station was automated by the United States Coast Guard in 1976, at which time its ancillary structures except the fog station were torn down. The light continues to be managed by the Coast Guard, and is not open to the public; the island and buildings are owned by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Winter Harbor Lighthouse // 1856

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Built in 1857, Winter Harbor Light is one of Maine’s enchanting historic lighthouses dotting the rugged coastline. The lighthouse was built by the United States government to aid navigation for the local fishing fleet, an important piece of the local economy there. The light tower, built in 1856, is a round brick structure topped by an original octagonal lantern house with an iron walkway and railing around it. A brick single-story workroom projects from the tower. The keeper’s house is a two-story wood-frame structure, which was built in 1876 (along with the ell) to replace the original keeper’s house. The light was decommissioned in 1934 and sold into private hands, but in its seventy-six years of service, nine keepers and their families lived on the island. It remains a visual landmark on its small island in Mt. Desert Narrows on the drive along the Schoodic Peninsula in Acadia National Park (Winter Harbor side). What are your favorite lighthouses in Maine?

Channing Chapel – Winter Harbor Public Library // 1888

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At a time before women could vote or be admitted to the American Medical Association, Almena Guptill (1842-1914) left her small home on Harbor Road to graduate from Boston University of Medicine in 1876 and become a respected Boston physician. She married David Flint (1816-1903), a successful lumber dealer and philanthropist. Almena met David when treating his late wife in Boston. The two, both widowers, married in 1891. Being a staunch follower of William Ellery Channing and believing that there was sufficient interest in Unitarianism here, Flint felt that there was need for a meeting place in his summer town of Winter Harbor. He had this chapel built adjacent to his summer house in the winter of 1887-1888, having field stones brought to the site of the future chapel by people of the village sliding them over ice in the winter. I could not locate the name of the architect of the building. The chapel was deeded to the American Unitarian Association and was later gifted by the association to the Town of Winter Harbor in 1958, the town would sell the property that year. In 1993, a preservation group purchased the chapel and sold it in 1999 back to the town. It now houses the Winter Harbor Public Library. Talk about full-circle!

Hammond Hall // 1903

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Winter Harbor, Maine, may just be my new favorite place in the state! The town is located just east of Mount Desert Island, south of Gouldsboro (of which it was a village within the town). In 1895, after the Grindstone Neck summer colony was developed, the town’s increased finances and outlook led them to incorporate as a separate town. And what does any new town need? A town hall! Construction of the hall was proposed in 1902 by Edward J. Hammond, owner of a local lumber business who made his fortune shipping and selling the Maine lumber in Boston. Hammond donated the building materials and building lot after a fire swept through Winter Harbor village. The town offices moved out of the building in 1958, and the main hall continued to be used as a school gymnasium until 1987. The town then sold the building to the Winter Harbor Historical Society. Lack of funding by the turn of the present century resulted in the building’s decline, and it was slated for demolition in 2002. It was rescued by Schoodic Arts For All, a cultural organization that brings a variety of events to the space, which now holds a long-term lease on the property. The building looks great today!

West Gouldsboro Union Church // 1888

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In 1888, the West Gouldsboro Union Church Society had enough funds to build this Queen Anne style church, built completely from member donations. By November 1888, the exterior was completed, but so much money was spent on the detailing on the exterior, no funds were available for the exterior painting and interior spaces. In 1891, the new church was finally dedicated. The West Gouldsboro Union Church is a stunning example of a church in the Queen Anne style with varied siding forms, asymmetrical plan, and square tower capped by a pyramidal roof. My favorite part about this building is its historically appropriate paint colors. For a long time, the church was fully painted a bright white, but now its details really shine!

Gouldsboro Townhouse // 1884

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Welcome to Gouldsboro, Maine! The town is a charming community made up of many small fishing villages and neighborhoods dotting the rugged Maine coastline. Land in what was then part of Massachusetts, was given to Colonel Nathan Jones, Francis Shaw and Robert Gould in 1764 by the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Francis Shaw and Robert Gould were both merchants from Boston. Francis Shaw had worked hard to develop Gouldsboro, and reportedly died broke because of it, and his son Robert Gould Shaw returned to his parents’ native Boston. Development in the area was slow and never really took-off due to the distance from Boston, but fishing, mills, and villages were built and remain to this day. Now, much of the area is home to summer residents flocking to the area from urban areas. This building was Gouldsboro’s second townhouse. It was constructed in 1884, soon after the first townhouse burned a year prior. The structure was used for town meetings and elections until 1983. It is now owned by the Gouldsboro Historical Society. It is a late, vernacular example of a Greek Revival townhouse.

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.

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.