Everything in one of Maine’s most famous homes is being auctioned off this weekend after the property sold for more than $1.8 million earlier this month.
The contents of Kennebunk’s “Wedding Cake House” will be sold through an online-only auction on Saturday, Oct. 18 at 10 a.m. The hundreds of items expected to be auctioned include an extensive art collection, furniture, decorations and dishware.
The landmark on Summer Street in Kennebunk is a yellow, two-story home frosted with an ornate, Gothic-style white trim. George Bourne, a fourth-generation shipbuilder, built the house in 1825 as a wedding present for his new wife.
The most expensive items in the auction, organized by Freeport-based Casco Bay Auctions, are two paintings with an estimated price of $2,000 to $3,000. One is an impressionist style painting of a gardenscape by artist Arthur Weeks and the other piece is a portrait of George Washington.
Interested buyers can place bids online or schedule an appointment to preview items on Oct. 16 and 17.
The property changed hands recently after it was listed for sale in March 2024 with an asking price of $2.6 million. The listing was removed in November 2024 after the home didn’t sell, but it went back on the market in May 2025 for slightly less than $2.5 million.
The house sold for $1.8 million on Oct. 1, said Andi Robinson, senior vice president of Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty, the listing agent for the property. The buyers are from out of state and intend to use the property as their residence, but Robinson couldn’t confirm whether they plan to live there full time or seasonally.
The seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom house has more than 6,200 square feet of living space and is on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition to the main house, a carriage house and barn that hold a ballroom-style space and a large back deck sit on the more than 2-acre property.
The previous owners, Hunt and Katie Edwards, had lived in the house seasonally since 2014. Hunt Edwards wrote in a 2023 column that the famous house had structural deficiencies in its foundation, walls and chimney and the hand-carved trim was rotting.
That year, the owners applied to be able to host events in the home, such as weddings, and potentially use it as an inn, to bring in some extra money, but the town’s select board rejected the request the following year.
When the home was put on the market in 2024, listing agent Nate McCabe told the Bangor Daily News that the Edwards had done a great deal of work on the home and the only remaining deficiencies were in the barn and in the trim on the west side of the house.
