F e b r u a r y / M a r c h 2 0 1 8 8 5 House of the Month photos by Michael Eric Berube of Maine Virtual Home Tours D uring my wonderbread sum- mers in the Kennebunks, riding my bike almost daily from Gooch’s Beach to Kennebunkport, I’d always steal a look for her–that ghostly face peering from the second floor window of the falling- down, fabulous Colonial mansion that was 1 Doane’s Wharf Lane. Though I so want- ed to, I couldn’t look at her too long, be- cause “that would be rude,” and she chilled me to the bone. But the invalided Miss Frances Treamer (1893-1968) was really a sweet person, however much she looked like a character straight out of a Nathan- iel Hawthorne story. So often people, and houses, are misunderstood as the result of insufficient details. My mother lived across the street from homebound Miss Treamer–already legend- ary for her window-watching–when she was a child. Only once did our family wit- ness this startling creature move outside in daylight. The story goes, one fall day, my grandfather looked up from raking leaves to see none other than the frail Miss Tream- er slowly but deliberately making her way across Beach Street, leaning on her cane. Clearly she was on a mission. “Young man,” she addressed my grandfather, though they were roughly the same age. “You have In- dian shutters in your windows. I’d just like you to know.” Startled, he invited her in, but instead of taking an offered seat, she went over to the front window, pulled one of the Indian shutters out with a flourish, and then, refusing tea, left with a gracious smile, returning to her window with a face so in- delible it seemed etched in the glass. A For-Sale Sign Appears Well after her death, One Doane’s Wharf Lane went up for sale. Touring the house, I was Pip in Miss Havisham’s house in Great Expectations. Here was ancient paneling and a floor plan that looked like three houses joined together across the centuries, each with a different story to tell, dating to 1765. In the salon I found a giant hole, as if a meteorite had crashed through the rot- ten flooring. Looking down into the hole, I saw the remains of a piano, its gleaming surface visible through patches of thick dust. I studied its frozen keys, its broken sound board, its mangled loud and soft By Colin W. Sargent Treasure Salvaged 1 Doane’s Wharf Lane, Kennebunk.