Off sea-swept Kennebunk Beach, a marvel of architectural salvage\u2026<\/span><\/h3>\nBy <\/span>Colin W. Sargent<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n![\"hom1\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/hom1.jpg\" "\\"hom1\\"")
In 1919, future best-selling novelist Kenneth Roberts took a leap in the dark. Craving a place where he could hear himself think, he quit his job as a reporter for the Boston Post <\/em>and moved to One Linden Avenue in Kennebunk Beach to write the stories that would make him famous.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cStall Hall\u201d is where he dared create before <\/em>he was \u201cKenneth Roberts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nListed for $840,000 today by Kennebunk Beach Realty, the former stable was purchased by the writer \u201con easy terms from a favorite aunt,\u201d Lucy Tibbetts Russell, who owned \u201cthe mansion on the hill\u201d next door. <\/span><\/p>\nShelter Blogging, <\/strong>1920<\/strong><\/span>s style<\/strong><\/p>\nIn those days, Webhannet Golf Course had not yet brightened his doorstep, so the stable lacked the views of the first green, first and second fairways, and second tee it enjoys today. Instead, Chez Roberts<\/em> surveyed a swath of grassy countryside enlivened by a sea breeze. <\/span><\/p>\nEven as the links took shape across the street, the scribbler turned \u201cStall Hall\u201d into a world-celebrated makeover project in a series of comic articles sending up the Colonial Revival craze of the 1920s and 1930s for the Saturday Evening Post. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\nAcross two decades here, he lovingly\u2013and cantankerously\u2013transformed the forlorn stable into a handsome Shingle Style dream house with two inviting brick fireplaces, coffered ceilings, and exquisite crown molding.<\/span><\/p>\nMore pizzazz was added when the young writer rescued a wrought-iron balcony from New Orleans and opened up a master-bedroom window with it. It\u2019s still here<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\nDuring World War I, Roberts was a military intelligence officer stationed with the Siberian Expeditionary Force. So it\u2019s an easy guess where the two ancient Russian icons built into the dark-pickle-paneled dining room walls came from. <\/span><\/p>\nDitto for the authentic Colonial hinges everywhere in the house. Roberts was ahead of the curve here, embracing architectural salvage before its new wave of popularity today.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"hom2\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/hom2.jpg\" "\\"hom2\\"")
Enormous burst of creativity<\/strong><\/p>\nRoughing it in his pine-paneled basement study, Roberts saw drafts of Arundel <\/em>(1929) and The Lively Lady <\/em>(1931) flow from the tip of his pen. He also wrote some loopy stuff at One Linden\u2013how about Black Magic <\/em>(1924), a book about Mussolini? Ever hear of Europe\u2019s Morning After<\/em> (1921), <\/em>a disturbing travelogue through war-devastated tourist traps?<\/span><\/p>\nIn that year, The Sunday Oregon<\/em> described his fount of inspiration: \u201c\u2018Stablehurst\u2019 is what Kenneth Roberts, the author of Europe\u2019s Morning After,<\/em> called his beach home when he made over a stable into a residence at Kennebunk Beach, Maine. But it is said his literary neighbors, Booth Tarkington and Hugh Kahley, thought the name lacked elegance and they christened it \u2018Stall Hall.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nThe Original money pit<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nTo his credit, Roberts proudly embraced the more \u201celegant\u201d title of Stall Hall, even though it spoofed his grandiloquence. <\/span><\/p>\nHe even took up gardening here, surrounding Stall Hall with \u201cexcrescence\u201d and \u201cenough sweet william\u2013a flower that leaves me as cold as<\/span> Australian spinach or witch grass\u2013to carpet the duchy of Luxembourg.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nFinally, at his zenith, he sold Stall Hall lock, stock, and black wicker furniture to remove to his new Kennebunkport mansion, Rocky Pasture. The latter has been so connected with Roberts that Stall Hall\u2013where he first rolled up his sleeves and did his greatest work, the exciting first site where he most ardently \u201cwanted to write\u201d\u2013has slipped below the radar.<\/span><\/p>\nThe shriners\u2019 magic summers <\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cMy grandparents bought Stall Hall from Roberts in [1929] for $3,000,\u201d seller Charlie Shriner, 61, tells us. \u201cThe first summer I came here, I was three months old.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nWhen we toured Stall Hall with Kennebunk Beach Realty\u2019s Pat Foley, there was an overwhelming sense that \u201calmost nothing has changed\u201d since the author lived here. \u201cWell, there used to be a screened porch,\u201d Shriner says, \u201cwith swinging furniture in it,\u201d that is now a green-slate terrace.<\/p>\n
Entering via the lawn through a gracious French doors surmounted by Georgian Revival entablature, guests are dazzled by a great room paneled in beadboard with a warm, honey-gold finish. The large beams of the coffered ceilings are encased in the same material, while an enormous white-brick fireplace with Colonial hardware holds court on the opposite wall. Through the windows flickers the emerald green of the golf course.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThis room is my favorite,\u201d Shriner says. \u201cSit down and you\u2019ll want to stay here forever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n![\"hom3\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/hom3.jpg\" "\\"hom3\\"")
L\u2019esprit de l\u2019escalier<\/strong><\/p>\nThe original kitchen\u2019s hinges date to the 1700s. It\u2019s a friendly space lit by the gardens behind it, but \u201cI understand that the next owner is going to put in a new kitchen.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\nA landing from which many a \u201cspirit of the stairway\u201d must have been released to deputations below leads to Floor Two. <\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThe stairway went into the dining room, too, but my mother took it out to create the outdoor deck\u201d facing Webhannet\u2019s first [putting] green below yellow-and-white awnings. It\u2019s a good move, a front-row ticket to the show.<\/span><\/p>\nUpstairs, the bedrooms charm in white shiplap, a natural pick for the author of The Lively Lady<\/em> and Lydia Bailey<\/em>. Another reminder that, yes, this was really a stable is a set of cast-iron stars that secure the suspension rods holding the second floor aloft.<\/span><\/p>\nSure, the bathrooms need redecorating. Some wouldn\u2019t have the heart to do it.<\/span><\/p>\nThe basement is all knotty pine, with Roberts\u2019s study and its built-in bookshelves a hallowed place for any writer to envy. <\/span><\/p>\nWhich brings us to the conundrum: If a bombastic ghost lives in a house, how much redecorating can you do before you do violence to its zeitgeist? <\/span><\/p>\nAt press time, we bumped into a letter on eBay (\u201cBuy it now, $375\u201d) postmarked August, 25, 1927, where Roberts jokes, \u201cIf you come back, I will play golf with you, but by God I cannot get under 89\u201d\u2013not so bad a score considering his other avocations. It\u2019s just a quick shout out to a friend, a fellow Maine writer. Wickedly, Roberts has addressed it, \u201cWastebasket, Maine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nIn acerbic pencil, the forwarding postmaster has drily written, \u201cTry Wiscasset.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\ndownload the <\/a><\/span>Kennebunk Beach Realty ad (.pdf)<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Where he dared create before he was \u201cKenneth Roberts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-classic-maine-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273","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=3273"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18289,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273\/revisions\/18289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cStall Hall\u201d is where he dared create before <\/em>he was \u201cKenneth Roberts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Listed for $840,000 today by Kennebunk Beach Realty, the former stable was purchased by the writer \u201con easy terms from a favorite aunt,\u201d Lucy Tibbetts Russell, who owned \u201cthe mansion on the hill\u201d next door. <\/span><\/p>\n Shelter Blogging, <\/strong>1920<\/strong><\/span>s style<\/strong><\/p>\n In those days, Webhannet Golf Course had not yet brightened his doorstep, so the stable lacked the views of the first green, first and second fairways, and second tee it enjoys today. Instead, Chez Roberts<\/em> surveyed a swath of grassy countryside enlivened by a sea breeze. <\/span><\/p>\n Even as the links took shape across the street, the scribbler turned \u201cStall Hall\u201d into a world-celebrated makeover project in a series of comic articles sending up the Colonial Revival craze of the 1920s and 1930s for the Saturday Evening Post. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Across two decades here, he lovingly\u2013and cantankerously\u2013transformed the forlorn stable into a handsome Shingle Style dream house with two inviting brick fireplaces, coffered ceilings, and exquisite crown molding.<\/span><\/p>\n More pizzazz was added when the young writer rescued a wrought-iron balcony from New Orleans and opened up a master-bedroom window with it. It\u2019s still here<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n During World War I, Roberts was a military intelligence officer stationed with the Siberian Expeditionary Force. So it\u2019s an easy guess where the two ancient Russian icons built into the dark-pickle-paneled dining room walls came from. <\/span><\/p>\n Ditto for the authentic Colonial hinges everywhere in the house. Roberts was ahead of the curve here, embracing architectural salvage before its new wave of popularity today.<\/span><\/p>\n Roughing it in his pine-paneled basement study, Roberts saw drafts of Arundel <\/em>(1929) and The Lively Lady <\/em>(1931) flow from the tip of his pen. He also wrote some loopy stuff at One Linden\u2013how about Black Magic <\/em>(1924), a book about Mussolini? Ever hear of Europe\u2019s Morning After<\/em> (1921), <\/em>a disturbing travelogue through war-devastated tourist traps?<\/span><\/p>\n In that year, The Sunday Oregon<\/em> described his fount of inspiration: \u201c\u2018Stablehurst\u2019 is what Kenneth Roberts, the author of Europe\u2019s Morning After,<\/em> called his beach home when he made over a stable into a residence at Kennebunk Beach, Maine. But it is said his literary neighbors, Booth Tarkington and Hugh Kahley, thought the name lacked elegance and they christened it \u2018Stall Hall.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The Original money pit<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n To his credit, Roberts proudly embraced the more \u201celegant\u201d title of Stall Hall, even though it spoofed his grandiloquence. <\/span><\/p>\n He even took up gardening here, surrounding Stall Hall with \u201cexcrescence\u201d and \u201cenough sweet william\u2013a flower that leaves me as cold as<\/span> Australian spinach or witch grass\u2013to carpet the duchy of Luxembourg.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, at his zenith, he sold Stall Hall lock, stock, and black wicker furniture to remove to his new Kennebunkport mansion, Rocky Pasture. The latter has been so connected with Roberts that Stall Hall\u2013where he first rolled up his sleeves and did his greatest work, the exciting first site where he most ardently \u201cwanted to write\u201d\u2013has slipped below the radar.<\/span><\/p>\n The shriners\u2019 magic summers <\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cMy grandparents bought Stall Hall from Roberts in [1929] for $3,000,\u201d seller Charlie Shriner, 61, tells us. \u201cThe first summer I came here, I was three months old.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n When we toured Stall Hall with Kennebunk Beach Realty\u2019s Pat Foley, there was an overwhelming sense that \u201calmost nothing has changed\u201d since the author lived here. \u201cWell, there used to be a screened porch,\u201d Shriner says, \u201cwith swinging furniture in it,\u201d that is now a green-slate terrace.<\/p>\n Entering via the lawn through a gracious French doors surmounted by Georgian Revival entablature, guests are dazzled by a great room paneled in beadboard with a warm, honey-gold finish. The large beams of the coffered ceilings are encased in the same material, while an enormous white-brick fireplace with Colonial hardware holds court on the opposite wall. Through the windows flickers the emerald green of the golf course.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis room is my favorite,\u201d Shriner says. \u201cSit down and you\u2019ll want to stay here forever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The original kitchen\u2019s hinges date to the 1700s. It\u2019s a friendly space lit by the gardens behind it, but \u201cI understand that the next owner is going to put in a new kitchen.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n A landing from which many a \u201cspirit of the stairway\u201d must have been released to deputations below leads to Floor Two. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe stairway went into the dining room, too, but my mother took it out to create the outdoor deck\u201d facing Webhannet\u2019s first [putting] green below yellow-and-white awnings. It\u2019s a good move, a front-row ticket to the show.<\/span><\/p>\n Upstairs, the bedrooms charm in white shiplap, a natural pick for the author of The Lively Lady<\/em> and Lydia Bailey<\/em>. Another reminder that, yes, this was really a stable is a set of cast-iron stars that secure the suspension rods holding the second floor aloft.<\/span><\/p>\n Sure, the bathrooms need redecorating. Some wouldn\u2019t have the heart to do it.<\/span><\/p>\n The basement is all knotty pine, with Roberts\u2019s study and its built-in bookshelves a hallowed place for any writer to envy. <\/span><\/p>\n Which brings us to the conundrum: If a bombastic ghost lives in a house, how much redecorating can you do before you do violence to its zeitgeist? <\/span><\/p>\n At press time, we bumped into a letter on eBay (\u201cBuy it now, $375\u201d) postmarked August, 25, 1927, where Roberts jokes, \u201cIf you come back, I will play golf with you, but by God I cannot get under 89\u201d\u2013not so bad a score considering his other avocations. It\u2019s just a quick shout out to a friend, a fellow Maine writer. Wickedly, Roberts has addressed it, \u201cWastebasket, Maine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In acerbic pencil, the forwarding postmaster has drily written, \u201cTry Wiscasset.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n download the <\/a><\/span>Kennebunk Beach Realty ad (.pdf)<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Where he dared create before he was \u201cKenneth Roberts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-classic-maine-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273","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=3273"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18289,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273\/revisions\/18289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}In 1919, future best-selling novelist Kenneth Roberts took a leap in the dark. Craving a place where he could hear himself think, he quit his job as a reporter for the Boston Post <\/em>and moved to One Linden Avenue in Kennebunk Beach to write the stories that would make him famous.<\/span><\/p>\nEnormous burst of creativity<\/strong><\/p>\nL\u2019esprit de l\u2019escalier<\/strong><\/p>\n