{"id":14140,"date":"2017-11-30T11:50:26","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T16:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=14140"},"modified":"2017-11-30T11:55:44","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T16:55:44","slug":"weathering-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/weathering-heights\/","title":{"rendered":"Weathering Heights"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 2017 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

High upon<\/strong> a Cape Elizabeth cliff<\/strong>,\u00a0 <\/span>you\u2019ll find romance<\/strong> and shelter<\/strong>\u00a0from all storms in this cozy castle<\/strong>.<\/span><\/h3>\n

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

\"7Built on a soaring bluff for reporter, editor, poet, publisher, and lawyer Sylvester Blackmore Beckett<\/strong> (1812-1882), Beckett\u2019s Castle<\/strong> is a storybook retreat, stone by quarried stone. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, this one-acre estate with Norman tower and 350 feet of oceanfront is being offered for $3.35M.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maine State Historian Earle Shettleworth Jr. has identified this Gothic whimsy as one of the first summer residences built strictly for vacation purposes on the Maine coast. To see it, head south along Shore Road, pass Fort Williams and Delano Park, then turn left on Singles Road until you reach No. 7.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most recent resident is the late Nancy Brill Harvey (1930-2016), who adored her role as keeper of Beckett\u2019s Castle. Her daughter, Abby Harvey, is overseeing the sale.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deal of the Century<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother bought the house in 1982, at a real auction and not before the auction, as I\u2019ve read somewhere on the internet,\u201d Nancy\u2019s daughter says by telephone from Cambridge, Massachusetts. \u201cShe paid $100,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

By then, the castle was endangered and up on the block for back taxes. After Sylvester Beckett died in 1882, the property passed to his daughter, Augusta Beckett Verrill. Sometime before 1963, it was bought by an Army officer who\u2019d served at Fort Williams. Lt. Col Walter Singles left the castle \u201cto his daughter,\u201d Edna Singles Thomas, but life dealt her an unlucky hand and she was unable to live the fairy tale. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the end, a number of \u201csquatters lived in the house,\u201d Abby says, doing what they could to stay warm in the dark winters. \u201cBecause the fireplace was no longer usable, they\u2019d have fires in the middle of the [living] room,\u201d having dragged in \u201ca fire pit.\u201d There was a lot of \u201cdrinking and supposedly nudity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A social worker with a 1981 Master\u2019s Degree from Boston University, Nancy Brill Harvey saw beyond the mountains of beer cans as she cleared and lovingly restored the house and launched a private practice in downtown Portland \u201cwhich she ran for 15 years,\u201d Abby says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Galaxies of Roses<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In her mind\u2019s eye, Nancy also saw world-class seaside rose gardens shooting up between the savage granite outcroppings of the castle\u2019s spectacular vantage.<\/span><\/p>\n

So successful was she in creating these surf gardens with landscaper Lynn Shafer that word of her castle\u2019s beautiful mantle crossed the Atlantic. World-renowned rosarian Peter Beales came from London to visit Nancy and see the wonders of Beckett\u2019s Castle\u2019s gardens for himself \u201ca few years before his book The Vision of Roses<\/em>, came out in 1996,\u201d her daughter says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of this coffee-table book, realtor Tish Whipple says, \u201cIf you flip to the garden before Nancy\u2019s, you\u2019ll see it was the Queen Mother\u2019s.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So it was Nancy Harvey herself, in a duet across more than century with the original Beckett, who discovered a way to divine and interpret the genius loci of Beckett\u2019s Castle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother had this sort of contagious character,\u201d Abby says. \u201cHer favorite spots were the kitchen and her rose gardens. She loved to cook. She really adored the people who helped her restore and keep the house. She loved her children and grandchildren first, but she loved her house, too, and everyone who understood it. So she\u2019d have people over to celebrate\u2013everyone from architect Stockley Holmes to the painters to contractors to those who worked with her\u2013or just appreciated her\u2013gardens.\u201d Who\u2019d refuse an invitation to a place like this? <\/span><\/p>\n

Another drawing card was the magic of looking out and seeing four lighthouses: \u201cPortland Head Light, Ram Island Light, Seguin Island Light, and [the East Tower of] Two Lights.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Say it\u2019s an icy day on Shore Road. What did Nancy like to serve in her romantic castle? \u201cChicken cassoulet. Deep, rich stews. Of course, she\u2019d have lobster. But the memories I have of what she served often came in a soup bowl.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Nancy Harvey was what used to be called an original: \u201cShe liked to make up words. A \u2018drooly\u2019 day by the ocean on an overcast day.\u201d If ever someone offered help when she didn\u2019t wish it, Nancy would laugh and say, \u201c\u2018No need. I\u2019m Miss Tuffington. I can take care of this all by myself!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Come Inside<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Who doesn\u2019t adore a castle on the Maine coast? \u201cI love the bay window that\u2019s off the living room and dining room,\u201d says Tish Whipple. <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s all glass above wood floors. It has this amazing view up and down the coast.\u201d In the pre-dawn darkness and at sunset, \u201cI love the way the light comes off Seguin Island.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The living room may be \u201ca small space, but it has all those wonderful Gothic windows in it. It pulls the ocean in so you\u2019re on top of it. The house seems to grow right out of the granite rocks. There are wonderful masses of granite stones that the sea rushes over,\u201d so from the first you\u2019re hearing, feeling, experiencing this castle in Sensurround. \u201cYou almost feel as though you\u2019re in a ship. It\u2019s so dramatic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Outside, \u201cFlowers may look fragile, but among these huge masses of stone and the granite outcroppings, they connect a tender beauty here. But inside, it\u2019s that window that connects the drama of the ocean, windows, rocks.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, romantics will head straight for the tower. \u201cThe tower has its own persona.\u201d It grabs you on sight. \u201cYou arrive at the property in a cobblestone circular drive and see a small cottage structure with a 30-foot stone tower. You enter the tower directly. The walls are probably a foot thick. Inside, you look up and you\u2019re aware of the height. It isn\u2019t grim\u2013you feel as though you\u2019ve walked into a miniature baronial estate.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a surprise at the top of the tower.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt goes to the open air,\u201d Abby says. \u201cAs you\u2019re going up, some people expect to find a roof over their heads, but they don\u2019t. I\u2019ve seen some people look as if they\u2019re about to throw up!\u201d Halfway up, these guests are in a quandary: \u201c\u2018I\u2019m afraid of heights, but I have to see what\u2019s up here!\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For those who don\u2019t choose to head up to the ramparts, \u201cThe living room and dining room are lighter spaces and pull you into the body of the house,\u201d Whipple says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Raise the Portcullis!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

According to the Rhode Island Society for the Examination of Unusual Phenomena (riseupparanormal.com), Beckett was born in Portland to \u201cWilliam and Grace (Blackmore) Beckett,\u201d who sailed here from England. As a young man, \u201che took a voyage to the West Indies in the Bud<\/em>, a sailing vessel; was shipwrecked; and his narrative of the event proved a thrilling experience.\u201d Writing suited him. As a reporter, he filed stories for the Portland Advertiser<\/em> and Portland Bulletin<\/em>; as a visionary, he promoted the Grand Trunk Railroad and Portland as a freight destination and was \u201cone of the original projectors of Evergreen Cemetery.\u201d As a successful publisher, his enduring gift to researchers is his annual Portland Directory<\/em>, an indispensable street-by-street chest x-ray of life as it\u2019s shifted and changed across the years in the Forest City.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1842, Sylvester \u201cmarried Louisa Mills Davis, daughter of James and Elizabeth Davis, of Maine,\u201d according to the site. \u201cHis wife left him a widower in 1857 and he never remarried. She bore him three children, two of whom, George Waller and Lizzie Grace, died in childhood. The eldest daughter, Augusta, married George W. Verrill, an attorney in Portland.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Beckett died at his home in Portland on December 2, 1882, aged seventy years, six months, and seventeen days.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sylvester died in Portland in his winter palace at 15 Gray Street<\/span>.<\/span> This elegant brick townhouse (pictured above), sadly demolished, was the equal of the well-known houses on Park Street Row. Beckett\u2019s Castle was his summer retreat.<\/span><\/p>\n

Taxes for Beckett\u2019s Castle are $12,546.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 2017
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