s e p t e m B e r 2 0 1 8 1 2 1 o E o t E o t courtesy of drum & drum real estate 3 Nantucket, perhaps brought there by Kava- nagh and Cottrill to build their own hous- es. By 1803, Codd’s first child was baptized by Bishop Carroll of Baltimore, who’d ar- rived to consecrate the new brick St. Mary’s donated by Kavana- gh. After those two houses, Codd went on to build a string of Maine’s finest Fed- eral-era houses, includ- ing the famous James Mc- Cobb “Spite House” in Phipps- burg and the Captain William Nick- els house for McCobb’s brother-in- law in Wiscasset. It is not known where Codd received his architectur- al training; in Boston, where he first lived after arriving in America, or in his native Ireland. It is clear that, as with most of the talented house- wright-architects of early 19th cen- tury New England, he made excel- lent use of the English and American architectural pattern books of the day. As Earle Shettleworth noted in a re- cent conversation, Codd’s designs certain- ly owe more to Federal New England–the Boston area in particular–than late Georgian Ireland. Even so, the ex- terior of the house has Europe- an-inspired refinement. The flush board façade is meant to emulate smooth stone, the pi- lasters at the corner give gran- deur, and a wooden belt course at second floor level emulates similar features in stone buildings. Passing through the large front door from the semi-circular portico, one is in a hall of unusually sophisticated detail for the time and place. T he far end is apsidal, with a long curving stair rising to the second floor. Each broad and shallow step is a wooden box set upon an- other in imitation of the self- supported stone stairs of Eng- land, and in the newel post is set an elaborately carved ivo- ry inlay, bearing the designer’s initials, “N.C.,” high tribute by the owners. The hall doors are trimmed with elegant mold- ing, ending with a flourish in scrolled volutes at floor lev- el, a feature unique in Maine. The attic was lit by a skylight whose source was an unusual glass floor in the cupola above, possibly added in Victorian times. The second floor hall is