Maine
These 4 homes for sale in Maine right now have rich histories
Housing
This section of the BDN aims to help readers understand Maine’s housing crisis, the volatile real estate market and the public policy behind them. Read more Housing coverage here.
Maine has one of the nation’s older housing stocks, so it should come as no surprise that many homes for sale have long and storied histories.
We rounded up four homes on the market right now from South Berwick to Machias that were built centuries ago. They’re largely on the pricier side, which reflects both the high median sale price of Maine homes right now and the cost of renovating historic properties. Even ones that are less expensive to buy will need renovation to restore them to their former glory.
“There’s a lot less people out there looking for older homes than there are people looking for newer or modern homes,” Brandon Elsemore, a real estate agent with Keller Williams based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, said. “People get a little scared … thinking they’re inheriting 250-year-old problems.”
A former hotel and brewery in Machias, $350,000
This historic property in Machias, known as the Clark Perry House, is an ornate home built in 1868 for Perry, who was one of the largest property owners in town at that time. His home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its unique architecture, described in its nomination form as “a well-preserved example of the Italianate style” in a remote region.
Since Perry’s death in 1888, the home has served as a hotel, and in more recent years was a brewery and bar. The property is on a 1-acre in-town lot and has undergone a beautiful exterior renovation effort, but renovation work is needed to restore its 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom residential section, Deanna Newman, the property’s listing agent said.
An old Army hospital on Great Diamond Island, $250,000
The city of Portland is looking for a residential developer to breathe new life into an old army hospital it has owned since 2019 on Great Diamond Island. The vacant property was the hospital for Fort McKinley on the island.
The sprawling hospital complex was constructed in 1903 and staffed by a medical detachment unit and the Army Nursing Corps up until 1947. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places and once included an operating room, dentists’ office and kitchen, according to the Fort McKinley museum.
The property was supposed to be sold to a developer who wanted to turn it into condos earlier this year, but that deal fell through, Sara Reynolds, the property’s listing agent, said. That is why it’s back on the market.
This 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom farmhouse for sale in the western Maine town of Harrison was built in 1850, listing agent Pam Sessions said, and for a number of years was owned by a local hotel.
The Hotel Harrison was built in 1906 and could accommodate 100 guests, Martha Denison of the Harrison Historical Society, said. The men who built and operated the hotel acquired this home on Naples Road at the same time and used it as a residence to accommodate the hotel’s manager and any extra guests, Denison said. When the hotel closed in 1964, the home was returned to private ownership.
The property includes water views, a right of way to a shared waterfront and dock on Long Lake, a barn and garden beds, Sessions, an agent with Bearfoot Realty, said. Parts of the second floor are unfinished and would need restoring.
The South Berwick home of a prolific Maine judge, $975,000
This 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home in South Berwick was built in the late 1770s by Benjamin Chadbourne, a local judge and Massachusetts congressman credited with founding Berwick Academy, the oldest school in Maine.
His ancestors were heavy-hitters, too. Chadbourne’s great-grandfather, Humphrey, was a wealthy Englishman who inked one of the oldest deeds in U.S. history by buying property from a tribal chief, according to the Old Berwick Historical Society. Benjamin Chadbourne’s father, William, constructed one of the first water-powered sawmills in North America.
The Chadbournes have owned the property since and had a professional historic restoration company come in and painstakingly renovate the property in the 1990s. But the youngest generation of the family are no longer local and cannot care for it, Elsemore said.
“This is the first time the property has been on the market in its 250-year history,” Elsemore, the property’s listing agent, said. “It’s definitely beautifully cared for.”
The home includes plenty of historic accents, a barn that serves as a garage and antique shop, and a well-manicured garden area.
“Despite its age, it’s in great shape,” Elsemore said.
Many Maine municipalities will open cooling centers this week with the National Weather Service issuing a variety of heat advisories covering the next few days.
The Maine DEP also issued an air quality alert for Wednesday with ground-level ozone expected to reach levels that are unhealthy for sensitive groups.
All of York County, interior Cumberland and Androscoggin counties, and the southern half of Oxford County will fall under an extreme heat warning from 11 a.m. Wednesday to 8 p.m. Friday.
The warning calls for “dangerously hot conditions” that could feature heat index values of up to 110 degrees, with overnight lows only expected to fall into the 70s, according to the weather service’s office in Gray.
The rest of the state — save northern Aroostook, Piscataquis and Somerset counties — falls under a heat advisory from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday. However, the weather service has also placed much of the state under an extreme heat watch for Thursday.
Heat index values, which measure how hot it feels to the human body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature, are expected to reach up to 104 degrees during the heat advisory period, the weather service warns. They could reach 110 degrees Thursday, when the extreme heat watch is in effect.
Northern Oxford and Franklin counties, and central Somerset County, can expect a heat index value of up to 99 degrees Wednesday, according to the weather service.
The weather service advises people to drink plenty of fluids, stay in air-conditioned rooms when possible, avoid extended periods in the sun and check up on relatives and neighbors. It also warns not to leave young children and pets in unattended vehicles, as “car interiors will reach lethal temperatures in a matter of minutes.”
Cooling Centers
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has also issued an air quality alert from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Wednesday along the coast from Kittery to Acadia National Park. The agency warns that ground-level ozone concentrations are expected to reach levels that are unhealthy for sensitive groups.
Ozone levels may reach “moderate levels” further inland, according to the Maine DEP, including in all of Androscoggin and Kennebec counties, as well as parts of Cumberland, Knox, Lincoln, Penobscot, Sagadahoc, Waldo, Washington and York counties.
Elevated ozone levels can pose a risk to children, older adults and people suffering from respiratory or heart diseases, according to the Maine DEP. Anyone exerting themselves outdoors may also experience health effects, which could include coughing, shortness of breath, throat irritation and mild chest pain.
Ozone levels were already climbing in southern New England on Tuesday, according to the Maine DEP, and winds are expected to bring those conditions to Maine on Wednesday.
The Maine DEP recommends that vulnerable populations avoid strenuous outdoor activities, keep windows closed, and circulate indoor air with fans or air conditioners. Those with asthma are also advised to keep quick-relief medication handy.
Particle pollution levels are also expected to be moderate across the state on Wednesday due to wildfire smoke, the Maine DEP said in its announcement Tuesday. Wildfires in Colorado, which have claimed the lives of three firefighters, had burned nearly 90,000 acres as of Tuesday, according to the Denver Post.
Maine could face up to $50 million in penalties next year due to errors in its payments for federal food benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Newly released data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture find that Maine’s error rate last year was nearly 11%, the bulk of which were overpayments. That’s in line with the U.S. average. But starting in October of next year, states with error rates above 6% must cover a portion of the SNAP benefits.
Anna Korsen, executive director of Full Plates, Full Potential, said the overpayments aren’t fraud — they’re human error. She said this new cost-shifting policy enacted last year under the Trump administration further complicates the SNAP application process.
“Instead, we could make this program more accessible and more efficient,” Korsen said. “And that would reduce the number of errors and also ensure that Mainers who are eligible for SNAP have access to it.”
She’s urging Congress to delay or reverse the policy under the farm bill that’s currently under consideration.
Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services said it’s taking steps to reduce the error rate, including modernizing its systems and hiring an additional 40 eligibility specialists.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
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