{"id":10319,"date":"2014-12-31T11:42:49","date_gmt":"2014-12-31T16:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=10319"},"modified":"2014-12-31T11:42:49","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T16:42:49","slug":"high-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/high-society\/","title":{"rendered":"High Society"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 2015 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Five oceanfront stunners for sale\u2013and the whispers that surround them.<\/h3>\n

By Colin W. Sargent<\/p>\n

Manhattan Transfer: $9.5 M<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"WG15-High\"<\/a>Only dreamers would dare assemble an imaginary portfolio of the swankiest properties cresting the Maine Multiple Listings. And based on your internet activity, we\u2019ve profiled you as a dreamer. Read on.<\/p>\n

399 Hermit\u2019s Point Road, Islesboro<\/strong><\/p>\n

Say you\u2019re a two-term mayor of New York. In fact, you\u2019re the very gentleman who gracefully accepted The Statue of Liberty from the people of France. Which means, of course, you\u2019re also the eponymous shipping plutocrat who founded W.R. Grace & Co., the monolithic industrial empire that is still covered with admiration in magazines such as Forbes <\/i>and Fortune<\/i>. (According to lawinfo.com, \u201cJohn Travolta\u2019s 1999 movie A Civil Action<\/i> was based on the true story of 8 Woburn, Massachusetts families who were seriously hurt by water contaminated by the W.R. Grace Co.\u201d)\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

The year is 1918. And say you want to build a modest Renaissance Revival palace for your daughter, Louisa Nathalie Grace. Where would you build it? Where else but Maine, on the storied shores of Islesboro? You\u2019ve commissioned famous Philadelphia architect Wilson Eyre, born in Florence, Italy, to create the ultimate fantasy home on this windswept peninsula. Eyre, at the top of his game, and by many accounts America\u2019s premier domestic architect before Frank Lloyd Wright, is accustomed to having frighteningly powerful resources at his disposal. In one project, to address an empty space, he called Maxfield Parrish to have him whip up a bespoke mural\u2013a one-of-a-kind design.<\/p>\n

Here on Islesboro, Eyre dreams up an eight-bedroom stucco fortress with baths ensuite that will boast a lovely fir and mahogany deepwater dock. Tuscan touches include luxurient loggias. Across the peninsula, reflecting in the water, a stone guest house enchants as few structures can.<\/p>\n

Listing agent Terry Sortwell descibes this nine-acre Shangri La and the world it surveys: \u201cIt overlooks Penobscot Bay and offers magnificent views to the south down the bay, west to the Camden Hills, and east over Seal Harbor and Islesboro. Miss Grace was an accomplished artist, and she painted here in a studio she added to the house.\u201d The stone guest house \u201con the cove was inspired by the seaside cottages she admired on a trip to Italy.\u201d Sortwell\u2019s favorite spot is \u201cthe lower loggia. When you walk through the doors you\u2019re looking right down the bay.\u201d Taxes are $33,647.<\/p>\n

This Side of Paradise: $5.5M<\/strong><\/p>\n

19 Crosstrees Road, North Haven<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just because \u201cCrosstrees\u201d was\u2013until this year\u2013the summer home of the late Paul Cabot (1930-2014) doesn\u2019t mean the following doggerel is in any way appropriate:<\/p>\n

And this is good North Haven,
\nthe home of fried clams and Izod,
\nwhere the seagulls talk only to Cabots,
\nand the Cabots wish to communicate
\nwith prospective buyers
\nexclusively through their real estate broker.<\/p>\n

Because first of all, this Colonial Revival landmark has always been, to its very bones, a Gaston family property for well over a century. Moreover, Cabot\u2019s wife, Jennifer Felton Cabot, is charmingly forthcoming about listing the getaway her family has loved for five generations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m Mrs. Paul Cabot,\u201d Jennifer says, noting she\u2019s just gone through \u201cmy first Christmas without him. But [Crosstrees] has never been a Cabot place. It was built in 1895 by William A. Gaston, my grandfather. My mother, Hope Gaston Felton, inherited it, and I inherited it from her. Crosstrees looks towards Stonington, while the Lindberghs look out to Camden Hills.\u201d<\/p>\n

High-flying neighbors to be sure (see our \u201cStar Map of North Haven Island\u201d Summerguide 2014). Another summer neighbor, the post-impressionist painter Frank W. Benson (1862-1951), \u201cwas a very good friend of my grandfather. He painted my mother\u2019s portrait. It\u2019s hanging in my house in North Haven.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the next generation, \u201cMy children would love to keep Crosstrees if they could all come for two weeks in the summer, but it\u2019s not the kind of place you can use <\/i>for two weeks. I spend most of the summer there, and it takes a lot of doing to keep it up\u201d\u201315.5 acres of location, location, location.<\/p>\n

On top of that, \u201cNorth Haven, for better or worse, is terribly hard to get to. I have two children in New York, one in Nevada, and another in Massachusetts,\u201d so distance makes a dismal event planner, even though objects in the home cast a magic spell.<\/p>\n

THE Ticking of Eternity<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe original family photo albums are here,\u201d Jennifer says, possibly chronicling her Uncle William Gaston\u2019s marriages to world figures like actress Kay Francis; Rosamond Pinchot Gaston (see sidebar); and Theodora Getty Gaston\u2013the model for the torch-singer-turned-opera-star in Citizen Kane<\/i> and author of Alone Together: My Life with J. Paul Getty <\/i>(Ecco, 2013, $26.99).<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the dining room, echoing from happy get-togethers. \u201cI can seat 16.\u201d How about the enormous blue sofa in the sunroom? \u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen to it. It may go with the house. It\u2019s too big for my children to take on. It\u2019s where people have read and slept here\u2026\u201d Forever.<\/p>\n

Sometimes a space articulates itself in its deepest silences. \u201cWe have a player piano, and we have a lot of old rolls from the 1920s and 1930s. We\u2019ve turned them on, pushed the furniture back, and danced after dinner.\u201d The entertainment spaces vibrate with \u201cFirst World War patriotic songs.\u201d Also, \u201c\u2018When Your Hair Has Turned To Silver.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Beautiful & Doomed<\/strong><\/p>\n

Asked about Rosamond Pinchot Gaston, Jennifer responds, \u201cShe was my mother\u2019s brother\u2019s wife. [He had three.] My uncle William Gaston never owned this house; his sister\u2013my mother\u2013inherited it, but he owned several islands off Vinalhaven. One of the islands he owned was later named Hurricane. Let\u2019s see, I think he owned Crotch Island, Spectacle, and more. Rosamond must have been here at Crosstrees, visiting my grandparents, because my sisters remember playing with her children. When my grandmother died, my mother inherited the place, and maybe that\u2019s when Uncle William bought the islands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Exquisite Sense of Place<\/strong><\/p>\n

Poignantly the sole family member here, Jennifer is keenly aware of her private world. \u201cMy favorite 30 seconds is watching the sun rise from my bed at 4:30 a.m, and hearing the seagulls. We don\u2019t have crashing waves because Crosstrees is very protected. You could walk across the lobster buoys to Vinalhaven from my house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another nook she loves is \u201cthe deck. You can see Calderwood\u2019s Neck; Goose Rock Lighthouse, which is just in front of Stimson\u2019s Island; the Little Thorofare and Main Thorofare. You can see the lights of Stonington at night, and on a clear night you can see northwest and see the top of Blue Hill.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of her guest houses is called the Custom House because \u201cthere used to be a Custom House on North Haven when Pulpit Harbor had a town.\u201d Years ago, while winterizing part of the space, workers \u201cfound a sign. It had been part of the custom house. We had it regilded and gave it to my mother.\u201d The other guest house \u201cis called Hope Cottage. While expecting my mother, my grandmother didn\u2019t want to stay in Boston in 1901, so they came up here and my mother was born on North Haven.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jennifer\u2019s favorite meal is \u201cfresh-cooked lobsters on my stove, in salt water. Yes, I use seaweed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buyers\u2019 Market<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have looked at it and said \u2018it just doesn\u2019t work for us,\u2019\u201d Jennifer says of the estate that\u2019s so dear to her. \u201c\u2018We have to have this and that,\u2019 you know. I say to them, live in it a while and see if you don\u2019t like it before you start tearing it down. Because if you modernize it, it might lose its charm. I\u2019m all for new plumbing, and I did put in a new kitchen when I inherited it. I couldn\u2019t have coped with the kitchen as it was\u2013I think you have to have modern facilities. I put in a laundry room; before, the laundry had been in another building. My grandmother had 14 servants. I don\u2019t.\u201d She pauses. \u201cThe old paneling should stay. The fireplaces are wonderful. On a foggy day we use them, and they are wonderfully warm. They throw a lot of heat.\u201d Which conjures Edna St. Vincent Millay\u2019s description of burning the candle at both ends: \u201cThey make a lovely glow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taxes are $25,562.<\/p>\n

Look Who Flapped In<\/strong><\/p>\n

As one of three wives of \u201cUncle William Gaston,\u201d starlet Rosamond Pinchot Gaston was a sometime summer visitor at Crosstrees between 1928 and 1933. Five years later, estranged but not yet divorced, she \u201cwas found [dead from carbon-monoxide poisoning in a car parked inside the garage of a rented mansion in Oyster Bay, Long Island, NY].\u201d According to a Jan. 24, 1938, obituary, she was wearing \u201ca shimmering white evening gown, silver slippers, and an ermine wrap.\u201d A garden hose snaked from the exhaust into her motorcar window.<\/p>\n

The nation mourned her. At 17, dressed as a nun, she\u2019d won the hearts of New York theater-goers as the star of the biblical epic The Miracle. <\/i>On the silver screen, she was memorable as Queen Anne in 1935\u2019s The Three Musketeers<\/i>. A niece of Pennsylvania Gov. Gifford Pinchot (1923-7, 1931-5), Pinchot Gaston was kicked off the New York social register\u2013presumably for ditching her debut and entering show-biz. Her widower, William Gaston, would later own what is now Hurricane Island, headquarters for The Outward Bound School.<\/p>\n

Bar Harbor Bonanza: $6.75M<\/strong><\/p>\n

120 Schooner Head Road,<\/strong>
\n Bar Harbor<\/strong><\/p>\n

The secret back passage to Acadia National Park is whispered among locals because \u201cthat\u2019s the way you can reach Sand Beach without having to pay.\u201d For those of us who can\u2019t afford to go free, it\u2019s hard to beat this property at Schooner Head Road. After you pass Jackson Lab on the right, \u201cthe house is through a gated drive on the left, right before Seely Road,\u201d says listing agent Kim Swan.<\/p>\n

The view from this 15.6-acre slice is \u201cFrenchman Bay and looks right at Egg Rock and the Lighthouse.\u201d Built in 1990, the contemporary structure faces 570 feet of waterfront and scratches Heaven with its vaulting ceiling.<\/p>\n

Naturally, \u201cit has the benefit of up-to-date kitchens and baths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taxes are $36,684.<\/p>\n

Swooping Beauty: $1.98M<\/strong><\/p>\n

6 Bay View Drive, Freeport<\/strong><\/p>\n

To reach 6 Bay View Drive, journey to the extreme tip of Moore Point, \u201cpast Wolfe\u2019s Neck State Park,\u201d says co-listing agent David Banks. \u201cIt is situated at the very point of the peninsula.\u201d You know you\u2019ve made it out here when, at water\u2019s edge, you\u2019re enchanted by a once-in-a-lifetime view of Pound of Tea Island.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe [2007] building\u2019s curving design is Frank Grondin\u2019s signature style,\u201d says Ana Paprocki of Re\/Max By The Bay. \u201cIt\u2019s whimsical, with a medieval touch\u201d while suggesting the darts and dips of gulls. A mammoth \u201cfloor-to-ceiling stone fireplace provides a focal point of the open-concept family room and dining area. In the gourmet kitchen, a Regal Atlantic wood cooking stove and eagles-nest sitting area with concrete floors surrounds a fireplace built with stone from the property and surrounding islands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paprocki\u2019s favorite spot is the \u201ccovered oceanfront patio, which offers an ideal entertaining space with a stone pizza oven and access to the beautifully landscaped yard\u201d rushing to \u201c185 feet of owned deep water and access to an association dock.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did we mention it\u2019s LEED Gold Energy Standards certified? Because it\u2019s being sold by its original owner\/creator, the house\u2019s design intentions will reach a new buyer intact, with \u201cintricate detailing, a mahogany foyer\u2026striking water views,\u201d and the incomparable \u201coceanfront lawn.\u201d With shared-private-association access to an ancient granite pier, it\u2019s not a bad place to come in for a landing. Taxes are $24,202.<\/p>\n

Little Cottage for Jack & Diane: $5.99M<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 Clapboard Island, Falmouth<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1989-1990, a quarter century before John Cougar Mellencamp wrote the songs and lyrics for Stephen King\u2019s 2014 supernatural musical Ghost Brothers of Darkland County<\/i>, the rocker toured this ultra-private, shingle-style mansion in the center of Clapboard Island, looking for a Maine getaway. Back then, the house along with 22 acres of the island (the southern half) were for sale for $2.375M, with Vaughan Pratt of LandVest noting, \u201cWe sell kingdoms, not subdivisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

With just a single owner in the interim\u2013and listed most recently at $5.99M and returning to the market this spring\u2013the kingdom has added some basic necessities: \u201ca helicopter pad and a zip line,\u201d according to Ana Paprocki of Re\/Max By The Bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cMagnificently conceived by [Pennsylvania Roalroad owner] Samuel F. Houston and friend\/architect Joseph M. Huston in 1898,\u201d the Shingle Style landmark near the island\u2019s center was built by \u201c100 local artisans who completed the island home in just 100 days,\u201d with the help of \u201coxen brought over on barges.\u201d<\/p>\n

The estate sparkles along 3,200 feet of Casco Bay. Just a mile offshore, the island fills the windows of Dockside Grill on the mainland. Of course, from that distance, you can\u2019t see the lady\u2019s slippers on the property or feel your ears grow as you slip into the unencompassable silence of island living.<\/p>\n

Boating out to your property, you\u2019ll tie up to a private granite dock with 30-foot-wide granite stairs. Beyond the paneled entertainment spaces and 14 fireplaces, the most charming spot is a Hansel and Gretel-style playhouse, created by Houston after returning from Europe in 1912. Taxes are $38,693.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winterguide 2015
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