{"id":10370,"date":"2015-01-09T10:17:31","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T15:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?page_id=10370"},"modified":"2019-02-26T14:54:10","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T19:54:10","slug":"our-headquarters-at-165-state-street","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/our-headquarters-at-165-state-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Headquarters at 165 State Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"165-State-Street\"<\/a><\/p>\n

10 Things We Love About Our Headquarters At 165 State Street. Well, two things, with more to come!<\/h2>\n

Star Quality<\/h3>\n

Did you know that the ancestors of Oscar-winning actress Helen Hunt (As Good As It Gets<\/em>, with Jack Nicholson) lived our landmark headquarters at 165 State Street? A whirlwind (she also starred in Twister<\/em>) episode of Who Do You Think You Are<\/em> on the History Channel brought her to Portland, where she visited the library at Maine Historical Society as well as the building where her shipowner ancestor George S. Hunt, who earned a fortune in the West Indies trade, and Prohibitionist used to live. If you’d like to tour the first floor of this historic space, built in 1825 and formerly the headquarters of Greater Portland Landmarks, call us at 207-775-0101.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/realitytvmagazine.sheknows.com\/2012\/03\/23\/who-do-you-think-you-are-recap-helen-hunt\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Shape Shifting<\/h3>\n

165 State Street, built in 1825, has had some work done. Late in the 19th century, when French-inspired mansard roofs were in vogue, she shifted into such a roof, ditching her classic Federal styling. Ooh, la la! Shocked, straight-laced architect John Calvin Stevens restored the building to its original look in the 1920s. He also restored the interior.<\/p>\n

Our Brush With Fame<\/h2>\n

From the Editor, May 2012<\/p>\n

\"colin08\"<\/a>Oscar-winning actress\u00a0Helen Hunt<\/b>\u2019s great-great grandparents owned and lived in the landmark brick townhouse that\u2019s our magazine\u2019s headquarters at 165 State Street.<\/p>\n

This came to light when Hunt appeared in the television showWho Do You Think You Are?<\/em>\u00a0and traced her roots here. There\u2019s a dramatic pause as she opens a moldy journal in Maine Historical Society and the camera traces her finger to her forebears\u2019 address.<\/p>\n

Augusta Merrill Hunt (1842-1932) was a pioneering Prohibitionist and a courageous women\u2019s rights advocate. George S. Hunt (1829-1896), her husband, owned a fleet of ships in the West Indies trade, many of them in the sugar trade with Cuba. I\u2019m not saying their relationship was like Helen\u2019s and Paul Reiser\u2019s in the sitcom\u00a0Mad About You<\/em>, but consider:\u00a0He\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0making a killing bringing the crucial ingredient for rum into town (I\u2019ve once heard novelist William H. White call sugar cane \u201crum on the hoof\u201d), while\u00a0she\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0busy abolishing it. Far be it from me to suggest the Hunts\u2019 passionate pursuits went to different ends.<\/p>\n

George S. Hunt even had a beautiful barque named for him, a rakish craft which slipped unknown past the TV coverage but appears here. The show didn\u2019t discover or mention any of his ships\u2019 names, either, which are music to the ear:\u00a0Minerva<\/em>,\u00a0Henry P. Lord<\/em>,\u00a0Meriwa<\/em>,\u00a0S.W. Holbrok<\/em>,\u00a0Winslow<\/em>,\u00a0Charlena<\/em>,\u00a0Frank E. Allen<\/em>,\u00a0Ortolan<\/em>,\u00a0Sarah B. Crosby<\/em>,\u00a0Stella<\/em>,\u00a0Ada Gray<\/em>,\u00a0Arthur Kinsman<\/em>,\u00a0Blanche How<\/em>,\u00a0Eliza White<\/em>,\u00a0N.M. Haven<\/em>,Rachel<\/em>,\u00a0Frank E. Allen<\/em>,\u00a0Minnie Traub<\/em>,\u00a0Pilot Fish<\/em>,\u00a0J. Polledo<\/em>, and\u00a0Manzanilla<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s good Helen hunting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10 Things We Love About Our Headquarters At 165 State Street. Well, two things, with more to come! Star Quality Did you know that the ancestors of Oscar-winning actress Helen Hunt (As Good As It Gets, with Jack Nicholson) lived our landmark headquarters at 165 State Street? A whirlwind (she also starred in Twister) episode […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10370","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10370"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15911,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10370\/revisions\/15911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}