Housing
This section of the BDN aims to help readers understand Maine’s housing crisis, the volatile real estate market and the public policy behind them. Read more Housing coverage here.
This five-bedroom, three-bathroom home in Windham was built more than a decade before the United States of America was founded.
With more than 3,600 square feet of living space, the colonial-style home on River Road hit the market on Jan. 20 with an asking price of $950,000.
Peter Thatcher Smith, the son of Reverend Thomas Smith, Windham’s first Congregational minister, built the home in 1764, 12 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed, according to the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.
Portions of the home were finished at different times, in whatever building style was popular at the time, as the family grew and had the money to complete the work, said Frank Hennings with Coldwell Banker Realty, the listing agent for the property. This resulted in the home containing four different architectural styles — Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival and Victorian, Hennings said.
Peter Thatcher Smith was Windham’s second minister and lived in the house until his death in 1826. The home was then auctioned off and the Anderson family, who lived next door, bought it for their son, who had married the minister’s daughter, Lucy, according to the Windham Historical Society. The house was handed down through the family for five generations and used as a summer home.
The home’s many historic features include eight fireplaces, interior shutters, wide-planked flooring, a bell system for servants, and hand hewn timbers and arched brickwork in the attic and basement. But, many modern comforts have been added over the years, including updated kitchen appliances, indoor bathrooms and a forced hot water boiler.
There are also hidden details in the home, such as a secret room in the basement behind a fireplace that has etchings on the walls from past residents, according to Hennings. There’s also a large painting of a tree and fence on a chimney in the attic, which resembles a 200-year-old tree visible through a nearby window.
“We don’t know what the origin is, but theoretically, someone was standing in the attic and painted a front yard scene,” Hennings said. “When you look out the window, that same tree is still there.”
In 1953, the property was willed to the Society for the Protection of New England Antiquities, which is now Historic New England, a Massachusetts-based organization that operates dozens of historic house museums and manages countless historic artifacts and documents.
The home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, as it’s an intact example of Georgian-style architecture and still has many 18th century elements.
The home then served as a historic house museum managed by the historic preservation organization for several decades until the seller’s parents bought it in the 1990s and used it as their primary residence, Hennings said.
The seller’s father was a local pastor and was drawn to the religious element of the home’s history and its founder, according to Hennings.
The home came with preservation covenants, or agreements to maintain the building’s historic architecture and character. This means the home can’t be drastically changed and the land can’t be broken up and sold, Hennings said.
The seller moved in to help care for her aging parents, then inherited the home following their deaths.
The home sits on 124 acres that straddle River Road and contain forest, more than 1,000 feet of frontage on the Presumpscot River, and hayfields that are managed by a nearby dairy farm.
The community’s first cemetery, which is where many of the home’s former residents are buried, is in the center of the land and now owned by the town, according to the Windham Historical Society.
The property includes a carriage house and a detached barn, originally from the early 1800s, that was salvaged from another historic site in Windham after it was disassembled, moved to the property and rebuilt.
The property could be perfect for an entrepreneur who’s interested in turning the barn into an event space, or a buyer who simply appreciates the history attached to centuries-old homes, Hennings said.
“I can’t describe the feeling that old houses give you when you’re living there,” Hennings said. “The warmth of wide pine floors and knowing that people have been walking up those same stairs for so long before you.”
