N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 7 1 0 1 House of tHe MontH courtesy the swaN ageNcy - sotheby’s iNterNatioNal realty Resplendent Refugee another delicious crumb is falling from the table of the Gilded Age in bar harbor. By Colin W. SArGent G eorge Sullivan Bowdoin’s (1833-1913) ancestor James Bow- doin III founded Bowdoin Col- lege. Wouldn’t the founder have been proud to see “La Rochelle,” this 41-room chateau, take shape on the Bar Harbor shore in 1902? Everything about this ven- ture was top-drawer, including the ar- chitects–the Boston firm of Andrews, Jacques & Rantoul dashed off La Ro- chelle’s design while Andrews was dream- ing up blueprints for the east and west wings of the Massachusetts State House. During construction, the Bar Harbor Re- cord predicted the cost for what’s been called Bar Harbor’s first brick mansion might surpass “$100,000.” The mystery of this castle’s name sweeps us across the Atlantic back 400 years. James Bowdoin III’s ancestors were Huguenots (French Protestants) from La Rochelle, a seaport in Nouvelle-Aquitaine. They fled to the U.S. for relief from religious persecu- tion. (The word refugee entered the English language with the travels of the Huguenots in the 17th century.) The Baudouins, as in Pierre Baudouin, James Bowdoin I’s father, became the Bowdoins. Voilà! Things went very well for the Bowdoins here. Not only did the Bowdoin family heirs hold court in this house, so did Alex- ander Hamilton’s heirs. George S. Bowdoin, a treasurer at J.P. Morgan, was also the son of Alexander Hamilton’s granddaughter Fanny (1813-1887).