{"id":15459,"date":"2018-10-25T18:22:01","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T22:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=15459"},"modified":"2018-10-25T18:22:01","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T22:22:01","slug":"wild-olive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wild-olive\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Olive"},"content":{"rendered":"

November 2018 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Lakewood Theater Colony: a secret history.<\/h3>\n

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

\"NOV18-House-of-the-month\"I<\/span>f Lakewood Theater colony is the bathtub-gin martini, this rustic Victorian bungalow is the olive. If you love theater, parties, and lakeside living, 4 Olive Street is priced to get your heart pumping.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 1,192-square-foot mini-resort on .27 acres features a three-storey Italianate tower, two bedrooms, a full bath, a single-car garage, and views of Lake Wesserunsett. Also conveying is a legend best told over cocktails.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I bought 4 Olive, it had been owned by Louise Magoon\u2019s family since 1945,\u201d says seller Eric Pierce, who fell for this cottage after visiting Maine for his 50th high school reunion.<\/span><\/p>\n

He sensed magic the moment he stepped inside\u2014the fragrance of the past. Without delay he contacted Jenny Oby, author of Lakewood Theatre<\/em> (Arcadia Publishing, 2017), about the structure also known as \u201cThe Dance Hall.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Theater is on the north side of Hayden Brook,\u201d she says. \u201cOn the south side of the stream are more cottages, including 4 Olive Street. Prior to the Lakewood Theater colony, this birch grove was owned by Jedediah Hayden in the late 1700s. His son William was a devout spiritualist. In the late 1800s, William built a spiritualist hall. The ghost of this hall is now Lakewood Theater,\u201d she says. \u201cAround 1895, General R.B. Shepherd bought the hall and lake land for the Somerset Traction Company, with [trolley] service from Skowhegan to Lakewood. But there was a condition. For all perpetuity, the spiritualists must be able to have a meeting here one week a year. This meeting continues today.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As for how Olive Street got its name, \u201cWilliam Hayden\u2019s daughter was named Olive. She was a very devout spiritualist. Olive Street was named for Olive Hayden.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFour Olive Street was likely built by one of the Haydens in the late 1800s. I\u2019ve been inside. If you look at the back of the house, you\u2019ll see what looks like old stagecoach doors facing the lake, not the road. You\u2019d have had to drive your horse or car around back to use them. Just above those three doors is just this gigantic open room. It\u2019s huge. When Eric Pierce took me here, we scratched our heads. What could this have been used for?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rum-running? Wild parties? According to Pierce, \u201cThe elevated 30-foot by 30-foot dance hall, with its magnificent close-fitted diagonal birch planks, is compellingly unexplainable on its own.\u201d If you look closer, \u201cthe separate double-wide entry stairs and door that faces the courtyard instead of the road\u201d compound the mystery. If not for a limited-access speakeasy, what else could this possibly have been for? It\u2019s not wired for lights or electricity. In the 1920s, lanterns and candles would have been more fitting in such a place where anonymity was desired by some perhaps\u2026no bright lights to attract unwanted attention or prying eyes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the tower, \u201cthe top two rooms are bedrooms,\u201d Oby says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which brings us to a sexy little stream that separates this house from the Lakewood Theater Colony.<\/span><\/p>\n

P<\/span>ierce, born in Bangor but now a Texas resident, reports Lakewood Theater Colony manager \u201cHerbert Swett was determined to make and keep his theater and surroundings attractive to highbrow clientele in order to attract the best actors and actresses of the time, and to attract the most affluent visitors as well. The Dance Hall is a five-minute walk from the theater, and you have to cross a stream. Local legend has it that on the theater side of the stream, the theater had lots of rules for the actors and staff and housed them in gender separated housing. If you crossed the stream you were no longer under Swett\u2019s \u2018jurisdiction\u2019 or the rules of the theater. There is no doubt in my mind that a lot of thirsty and bored actors, actresses, and patrons crossed that stream on a very regular basis to drink, to party, and get a little wild\u2014if nothing else but to cut the boredom of city-dwellers confined to the deep woods of Maine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Pierce feels there\u2019s a chance Humphrey Bogart dared to cross this stream\u2014to stay at this bungalow possibly. <\/span><\/p>\n

According to Lakewood Theater\u2019s website, which credits Bringing Broadway to Maine<\/em> by John Oblak as its direct source, \u201cThe idea of a resort colony which would draw vacationers to the Lakewood grove originated in 1919. By 1924, theater programs advertised camps with baths for overnight guests and theater patrons. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1925 Lakewood\u2019s increasing sophistication appeared when the management referred to the overnight facilities as \u2018bungalows with baths,\u2019 not \u2018camps with baths\u2026\u2019 Certain bungalows were retained for the use of the company members. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the course of the 1934 season, Mary Philips, then wife of Humphrey Bogart, had spent the early portion of the season at Lakewood while Bogart finished his run in The Petrified Forest<\/em>. When Bogart arrived he went to Herbert Swett to request a private cottage for himself and his wife, but Swett, in all seriousness, suggested that Miss Philips stay in the cottage she had been sharing with Katherine Kidder, another member of the players, and that Bogart could move in with Sanford Cummings and Keenan Wynn, a suggestion which led Bogart to seek another landlord the next day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

T<\/span>hough Bogart didn\u2019t have much use for the tame side of life, we don\u2019t have a drop of Prohibition proof that he and Mary actually relocated or partied at 4 Olive. It\u2019s just wild conjecture about Wild Olive. To suggest otherwise would be crossing a different stream. Over there is the stuff that dreams are made of. <\/span><\/p>\n

Taxes are $967.50. Visit us on Facebook and tell us your Lakewood Theater story. <\/span><\/p>\n

_________<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

November 2018
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