One of the oldest houses in Portland is for sale.
The three-bedroom, one-bathroom home on Westbrook Street was built in 1743, making the home either the second or third oldest in Portland, according to Gretchen Briggs of Maine Real Estate Experts, the listing agent for the home.
Known as the Joseph Small House, the property is named for one of the appraisers of Colonel Westbrook’s estate who owned it, according to “This Was Stroudwater” by Myrtle Kittridge Lovejoy.
The home is on both the National and Portland Historic Registry, Briggs said. The structure is also older than both the Tate House museum in Portland, which was built in 1755, and the Wadsworth-Longfellow House in the city’s downtown, which dates back to 1785.
The single-story, cape-style house has 1,047 square feet of living space and is listed for $299,900. While the home needs some work, it’s just a little more than half the price of an average house in Portland, which sat at more than $571,400 as of Wednesday, according to Zillow.
The home’s design is simple, but Briggs said several elements of the property, including the chimney’s location, pitch of the roofline and shallow eves, are original to the home.
“It needs some love, but all the systems — lights, water and furnace — are working,” Briggs said. “The history of this home is so unique.”
Briggs said the home is perfect for a buyer who will appreciate its historical significance and isn’t afraid to perform the work and updates that the property needs.
The .19-acre property is one of 30 within the city’s Stroudwater Historic District, which marks one of the earliest colonial villages that later became part of Maine’s largest city, according to Portland’s Stroudwater Historic District Designation Report. Many of the city’s earliest homes settled in the area because the Fore River was used to transport goods.
Briggs said the oldest structures in Portland are in that neighborhood because the Great Fire of 1866 that destroyed much of the city didn’t cross the Fore River.
The house has also been moved twice — once in 1790 and again in 1842, which brought it to the home’s current site.
Depending on the season, Briggs said the Fore River and one of the Portland International Jetport’s runways are visible from the home’s backyard.
Despite its close proximity to the airport’s runway, Briggs said the sound of planes taking off and landing isn’t any more noticeable than it would be elsewhere in the neighborhood. This could be due to a barrier behind the home that helps block noise, she said.
“It’s a fantastic property and I’m shocked it’s still available,” Briggs said.
