The Ellsworth home of the late Ruth Foster, a former local city councilor and state legislator who held the unofficial position of the city’s grand dame of civic life, is on the market for $1.25 million.
Foster, who also ran her own businesses and served on many local boards, died in June at the age of 96.
The house, prominently located next to the Hancock County Courthouse, simultaneously reflects two periods in history: the 1800s, when it served as the home of Andrew Wiswell, who was speaker of the Maine House and later chief justice of the state’s supreme court; and the 1960s, when Foster and her husband bought it after it had been unoccupied for several years, according to Foster’s published memoir.
Foster and her husband Charles “Pat” Foster, who was in the plumbing and heating business, built a new long ell on the back of the house soon after buying it and restored the older part that fronts on State Street.
As a result, the front of the 6,000-square-foot home resembles a stately Victorian mansion, while the back has the feel of a mid-20th century ranch house, with an attached barn turned into a four-car garage and a large open living-kitchen space with bright blue cabinets and yellow counters.
The house sits on a nearly 2-acre lot and has a private backyard surrounded with fencing and trees, a winterized 3rd-floor rooftop cupola, and five bathrooms, according to Sargent Real Estate’s online listing.
“The house is currently set up with 5 bedrooms but could easily have more by reimagining the first and second floor libraries,” the listing says. “There are 2 kitchens, a lovely formal dining room with butler’s pantry, a banquet room that will handle larger gatherings and so much more.”
Foster wrote in her memoir, published in 2024, that the previous owner had gone to live in a nursing home for many years before she and her husband bought the State Street house in the mid-1960s.
“Everything was left behind,” she wrote. “Clothes, furniture, draperies, exploded cans of various foods in the kitchen. You can imagine the clutter.”
She wrote that they found and removed a “two-holer” outhouse on the second floor.
“We went wild on the bathrooms,” Foster wrote. “It was the era of blue, pink, green and black bathroom fixtures (and toilet tissue in blue and pink soon followed). These colored fixtures had really come into vogue.”
A few years ago Foster was approached by state officials to see if she might be willing to sell the property to Maine’s judicial branch. The state was considering options for improving its local court facilities, and was contemplating building a new judicial center on Foster’s property next to the existing courthouse — but would have had to tear down Foster’s house to do it.
She said at the time that she’d be willing to consider selling her home to the state, but only if replacing it with a new judicial center was in the best interests of the city and county residents. The state later decided Foster’s property was too small, and has since selected — with much encouragement and coordination from city officials — an undeveloped site off the city’s busy High Street corridor for a new $55 million judicial building.
“I wish them good luck,” Foster said of state judiciary officials in 2023, after they told her they were no longer interested in her house.
