OK, now I’ve gone and done it. I’ve convinced the rest of the country, and a goodly portion of the world, that people in Maine live in either derelict shacks, or Garage Mahals, like the Camden Architectonic Apocalypse. Not so.
All in all, Maine is pretty nice. Its got a seaside, and mountains, and sylvan glades full of bullwinkles, and primeval forests full of wanderers in REI gear, or carrying a chainsaw. It’s lively in the big cities, which aren’t big at all, and few and far between. It’s quiet out among the fleas, trees, and disease if you go west or north. Canadians have inherited a reputation for being polite and inoffensive, but it’s Mainers everyone is really thinking of. I’m not sure there are any Canadians left in Canada, and I’m cold enough already, so I’m not going to check. You could do worse than Maine, and you probably have.
So on today’s special edition of Great Moments in Maine Real Estate, we’re going to throttle back on the snide remarks, and show you what you could buy in Maine if you had way too much money, but more taste than our Camden compadres. You’re going to have to pony up an extra half-a-mil, but once you’re over two million, it’s a rounding error, really. You could move to Portland:
Portland’s not the capital of Maine. Ogguster is. Portland is the largest city, but it ain’t large, really. There are about 70,000 people milling around in it. In its general aspect, it’s a miniature Boston. It has a waterfront that is currently duking it out between fishing boats and condominiums. Condos always win, guys. It has a rabbit warren of streets nearby everyone calls the Old Port. It’s nothing but bars and restaurants and tchotchke stalls as far as the eye can see, at least if you have myopia. Lively.
It all pretty pleasant, but it has neighborhood called the West End, that most people covet for an address. This brick wonder is smack dab in the middle of it.
A lot of Portland is made of brick. The whole town burned down a couple of times, and people got tired of carrying water buckets around, and put up brick piles to save trouble. This house was built in 1868, “commissioned by Maine’s Governor Washburn.” That’s an inelegant turn of phrase, but real estate agents are veritable wizards at concatenating sentences that raise more questions than they answer. Commissioned? Did he build it but not live in it? Did he die before it was finished? Is it a spec house? (I doubt it). At any rate, Washburn was a founding member of the Republican Party, also according to the realtor. If you’re trying to sell a house in Portland, Maine, these days, I woulda skipped that. While the whole rest of the state is Alabama with snow, Portland Maine tries as hard as it can to be Portland, Oregon politically. Luckily, they’re bad at it, so the place is still quite liveable.
It’s a handsome looking place, innit? It’s got a better garage than the Frank Lloyd Wrong place in Camden, too. You could sell it for way more than the half-a-mil difference in price, and just between you and me, I’d rather live in this garage than that other house:
Of course I’m committing an architectural abomination by calling it a garage instead of a coach house, but time marches on and we must acknowledge it.
Unlike every other house for sale everywhere, the current owners of this house have avoided the siren song of modern farmhouse chic, left the place alone, and simply took care of it. It’s still nice in there, instead of a gray floor, gray wall, barn door, live-laugh-love featureless monstrosity.
Yeah, I could just about put up with this place:
These poor benighted souls put the Roman columns right-side up.
The kitchen is nothing special, thank God. It looks like normal people could cook food and clean up in there, which is more than you can say for the fussy quartz counter Home&Garden TV abattoirs you see nowadays. And the bedrooms just look like a pleasant place to sleep, instead of “spaces” you could have dirigible races in:
The en-suite master bath is posh. The guest bath isn’t too shabby either:
I’d rather live in the au pair suite on the top floor than the house in Camden. It’s pleasant. Pleasant is underrated these days:
So move to Spring Street in Portland. You won’t be my neighbor, which is a plus for you. You’ll have to bring money, but that’s true in places like Oakland CA, which looks like a war zone to me. Only dogs crap on the sidewalk in Portland, and their owners pick it, too. The property tax is only $2,500 a month (!). I’m sure the town will spend it wisely.
I suppose, unlike the realtor, I should be completely honest, and mention something about winter.
See all (54) the pictures here.
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5 Responses
“Pleasant is underrated these days:.”
“Pleasant” is studiously avoided these days, because standing it beside “modern” or “high energy” reveals the shabbiness of our current (modern!) aesthetics.
My wife and I are political and economic refugees from the Soviet Socialist State of Minnesota, but I still occasionally look at houses back in the Heart of the Hive, Minneapolis.
Can someone please, please tell me why there has been a horrific trend by the owners of the old mansions of the 1880’s to 19-teens to cover up gorgeous wood (oak, maple, and sometimes mahogony) with white paint?
I see listings of house after house that have been desecrated by white trim and light-grey walls where there used to be spectacular quarter-sawn oak and genuine plaster-and-lath walls.
You would think that any professional (or even half-amateur) painter would look at what they’re being asked to cover (forever, since stripping those details would end up costing a fortune) and say, “No, you can’t pay me enough to destroy that.”
I’ve seen oak wainscoting, four feet high, covered with white paint to “lighten the room”. Arggggh! No more! It’s hard to look at, and you wonder what the frick-frack-and-flock is wrong with these people.
I grew up in a nice upper/middle class “white” town in So. California. It is one of the original settlements and close to Hollywood. My little Episcopal church had an original back wall behind the alter that was a fabulous wood. My mind wants to say California Redwood, but my heart says it may have been Madrone–definitely not oak, and not quite as red as redwood. No knotholes just a plain beautiful golden red. I have always remembered the calming effect that wall had. It was a backdrop for the lovely plain white very good quality linen alter cloths.
After being gone for 50 years I went back several years ago, couldn’t wait to get into my little home church. WOW! KAPOW! what a surprise. The entire back wall is a painted mural of Mexican people and saints, etc. The church managers tell me that they used iconographics in an effort to attract the newer residents! Rather than sitting quietly to contemplate the lessons being taught, the audience can now sit and make up their own internal motion pictures about the characters on the painted wood wall which is now just a screen behind the alter.
concatenating…show off.
Quick, paint all that trim white, and sand and stain the floors grey! Aren’t there some walls to knock out, too? And of course you MUST paint the exterior brick white, thus converting a no-maintenance-for-hundreds-of-years-at-a-time exterior to a constant-maintenance exterior that’s far uglier.
You know, “uglification” is a real thing.