{"id":16209,"date":"2019-05-02T10:01:44","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T14:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=16209"},"modified":"2020-09-29T10:15:23","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T14:15:23","slug":"near-the-madding-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/near-the-madding-crowd\/","title":{"rendered":"Near the Madding Crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"issuuembed\" style=\"width: 525px; height: 341px;\" data-configid=\"37604829\/69533037\"><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.js\" async=\"true\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">May 2019 | view full story as a .pdf<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Out of the fray but close to all the <b>Ogunquit<\/b> action, <b>Rose Meadows<\/b> is the <b>perfect<\/b> idyll for whiling away your endless summers.<\/span><\/h4>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.\u201d \u2013L.P. Hartley, <em>The Go-Between<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Colin W. Sargent<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-16192\" src=\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/HOM-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"HOM\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/HOM-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/HOM-200x134.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/HOM.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>S<\/span><span class=\"s1\">ociety portraitist <b>Channing Hare<\/b> lit up <b>Rose Meadows <\/b>for decades. In 1951, George Kane, the financier who would vault the Au Bon Pain bakery chain to world renown in the late 1970s, snapped up this <i>bonne bouche<\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cMy father spent summers here until 2009, when he was nearly 105 years old,\u201d his daughter says. \u201cHe carried on his life to the end!\u201d Always at full tilt, Kane was also on the board of directors at Panera.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\"> To reach this mansion at 84 Pine Hill Road, it\u2019s a five-minute stroll from the lush gardens at the top of Perkins Cove to this lofty position. The spirit of the Ogunquit art and theater colony is center stage here. Listed for sale for $2.89M, Rose Meadows is itself a performance piece, lifted into memory by fragrant shore breezes.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\"><b>Mists of Memory<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cI was 17 or 18 when we moved in,\u201d Kane\u2019s daughter, who asked not to be identified by her first name, says. \u201cI entered Smith College and graduated in 1955. Sylvia Plath was a classmate of mine. She studied English. I majored in Government.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Rose Meadows still majors in loveliness. \u201cMy favorite place is in the second-floor library, but I love the porches\u2013especially the one off the library. It\u2019s a friendly place. I remember reading Kenneth Roberts\u2019s <i>Arundel<\/i> there.\u201d From this Olympian perspective, viewers are treated to luscious, private views of the grounds across 2.3 acres. \u201cThe roses at Rose Meadows are mostly tea roses. It\u2019s just so beautiful.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Kane\u2019s daughter is silent a second. Is she remembering something?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cI used to have an Irish setter who just floated over the meadows. Her name was Patty.\u201d During the winters, Patty stayed with the family at their winter residences on Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. During the summers, the entire family felt the rush of release when they made it back to the Maine coast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Channing Hare \u201cbuilt the four-car garage. Oh, yes, he stopped by the house! I met him a number of times. He was very charming, interesting, funny.\u201d Hare, who kept a pet Belgian hare on the grounds at Rose Meadows just to spoof his name, excelled at capturing the sharp-angled grace, the prickly interiority of his subjects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">No wonder he fell for the inexpressible, trenchant quiet of Rose Meadows. Because this house is a celebrity convergence zone, Hare may have painted his portraits of Kennebunkport novelists Booth Tarkington and Kenneth Roberts here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">During his return visits to Rose Meadows after selling the property to the Kanes, Hare probably enjoyed seeing some of the world-class art the Kane family has amassed and displays to this day. \u201cMy uncle, Charlie Smith, was the collector in the family,\u201d Kane\u2019s daughter says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\">T<\/span><span class=\"s1\">he gates and fences surrounding her estate have additional wire protection against deer, who dream of sailing over the barrier and into the heavenly pasture. \u201cI haven\u2019t seen them climb over the fences. They\u2019re just here when I get here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Inside, the gorgeous stairways excite with four matched art glass finials on the Newel posts. \u201cMy mother found them at the Edith Cooke antique store in Wells,\u201d way back when. Just a guess: Pierpoint?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">What a place to entertain. They could have shot the movie <em>The Man Who Came to Dinner<\/em> in this house. \u201cWe serve lots of lobster in the dining room or on the porch off the dining room.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Fresh-Baked Inspiration<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">A few years before 1980, Kane\u2019s daughter\u2019s brother, Louis Isaac Kane, who was an executive at Kane Financial with his dad, bought the \u201cAu Bon Pain bread and croissant shop in Faneuil Hall Marketplace and expanded it into a chain, with [the elder] Mr. Kane serving on the board&#8230;In 2002, <em>Fortune<\/em> magazine reported that [Kane fils] appeared to be the oldest corporate director in the country, having been re-elected to a three-year term on Panera\u2019s board at 96,\u201d according to the <em>Boston Globe<\/em>. Backed by his father\u2019s money and guidance, Louis would lift Au Bon Pain to a household name (no matter its comically different pronunciations) as a delicious bakery\/bistro at airports and malls across the universe.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Written on the Wind<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n<p class=\"p7\"><span class=\"s1\">W<\/span><span class=\"s1\">ith its pillars and gambrels, 10 bedrooms, 6.5 baths, Rose Meadows could also be a set for shooting <em>Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte<\/em>. Can\u2019t you just see Bette Davis leaning down from the second floor gallery? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Built in 1895, the house\u2019s voice prints likely include ghostly visitors including Claudette Colbert, a pal of Hare\u2019s. \u201cChanning Hare was the second owner,\u201d Kane\u2019s daughter says. \u201cAs far as I know, the house was originally built for two sisters from the West. I thought it Chicago, but I may be wrong. There\u2019s a letter from the architect to the sisters written in pencil that says he\u2019ll do the finest job and use mantelpieces from Portsmouth, and it will cost $9,000. I couldn\u2019t find it last summer.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\"><b>Game of Scones<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">It\u2019s not just the deer who\u2019ll want to sail over the fence into Rose Meadows. It\u2019s hard not to envy the buyer who\u2019ll come here. Will it be a private residence or a B &amp; B where all the stars at Ogunquit Playhouse will want to stay? It\u2019s zoned for both.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Will Kane\u2019s daughter feel funny if new buyers rip out all of her perfect decorating, paint over the pickled paneling, paint the exterior licorice black, dump the books in the library to create an awesome media room, and line the windows with huge bleached starfish from away?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cNo, they can decorate any way they like. It\u2019s their right.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">2017 taxes were $9,940.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rose Meadows is the perfect idyll for endless summers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[892,232,224],"tags":[377,375,127,372,373,376,323,322,374],"class_list":["post-16209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate","category-shelter-design","category-talking-walls","tag-channing-hare","tag-interior-design","tag-maine","tag-maine-homes","tag-new-england-homes-and-living","tag-ogunquit","tag-portland-magazine","tag-portland-monthly","tag-shelter-and-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"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=16209"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19323,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16209\/revisions\/19323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}