The BDN is exploring Maine’s housing crisis from every possible angle, from how it affects home prices, to what it means for Mainers across the state. Read our ongoing coverage here and fill out this form to tell us what you want to know.
Selling one’s home is always a bittersweet affair. For Lisa McIlwain and Reeven Elfman of Portland, it means parting with the place they turned into a tourist attraction.
Both are Massachusetts natives who moved to Maine decades ago to attend Bates College. They lived in the same dorm, but never exchanged more than hellos, Elfman said. That changed 20 years later, when they were in Chicago at the same time and got back in touch.
“She called me out of the blue, and so we became friends over a nine-year period. I used to tell her stories about people I was dating, and one of the stories I told her about was women who dropped off casserole dishes for me after I got divorced, so I’d have to return the casserole dish,” Elfman said. “So in 2012 — 33 years after we first met — I sent her a casserole dish with a note: ‘If you want to be more than friends, let me know.’”
The dish did the trick. Elfman moved to Maine from Illinois to be with McIlwain, who had been living in East Boothbay all those years. The couple, who both work in health care, bought their home together on Portland’s Western Promenade in 2015, a stately brick home built in 1905.
Since the couple moved in, the property has earned a moniker with tourists: “The Proposal House.” In 2019, Elfman conspired with the operators of Portland Discovery’s trolley tour to make a stop by their house so he could propose to McIlwain.
“They’d come by our house anyway,” Elfman said. “I had some friends of ours put out a sign — ‘Will you marry me?’ — a huge banner. And so it comes over the right in front of the house, and she got very emotional. I proposed, and then I had her two favorite items there: warm Diet Coke and Wheat Thins.”
To this day, whenever the trolley rolls down the Western Prom and by the couple’s home, they ring a bell. The couple bought a huge railroad bell from the 1900s so they could ring back.
The bell is one of many quirky curios Elfman and McIlwain have picked up from flea markets and antique shops around New England over the last decade to decorate their home. Despite those touches, the property retains a timeless charm with its period woodwork, spiral staircase and 13 original stained glass windows.
Though the couple feels their history is bound up in their home — a 4-bedroom, 5-bathroom property with decks overlooking the water — it’s time for them to move on. They’re both retired with grown children who have moved across the country. They’d like to live closer to them.
This week, their property was listed for sale by Erin Oldham of the Portside Real Estate Group at just under $2 million, and will likely sell fast. In just 24 hours, the home had five showings and more scheduled for the weekend.
The couple said they will miss hosting big gatherings in their backyard and on their decks, especially the one they throw each year for the thousands of runners who race by while completing the Old Port half marathon.
“We love Portland, we love the restaurants, we love just walking around,” Elfman said. “And we enjoy the craftsmanship, the care put into building the home. It floods light in the sunrise, in the sunset. It’s gorgeous.”
