Architect of the Week: John Leasure

By Alessa Wylie

John Leasure in 2012 with his painting of the South Portland Public Library

If you drive around greater Portland chances are you’ve noticed a building designed by John Leasure. They are usually hard to miss because of their notable Mid-Century Modern design. The South Portland Library, Franklin Towers in Portland, Saint Bartholomew Catholic Parish in Cape Elizabeth are just a few. Let’s learn a little bit more about this interesting man whose work reflects his like of simple, “clean” architectural lines and minimalist shapes.

A native of Altoona, Pa., John Leasure joined the Navy for two years and then went to Penn State as a music major. However, after seeing Gary Cooper’s performance as architect Howard Roark in the 1949 movie “The Fountainhead” Leasure changed his mind and decided that was what he wanted to do.

“When I went in to see “The Fountainhead” I had no idea what an architect was,” said Leasure. “I mean, I never drew a line. But I came out of that move and I thought, that’s great, that’s what I’m going to do with my life.”

He moved to Maine in his early 30s and opened his own office. At first, he worked on smaller jobs but then in 1965 he secured his first big municipal project, the South Portland Library. There he learned the politics of municipal design and budgets.

Drawings were scrutinized for ways to cut costs. A reflecting pool with fountains and a sculpture to be along the Broadway entrance was cut as were the stonewalls that he envisioned extending past the corner of the roof. Nevertheless, the building was hailed as an excellent example of functional modern architecture and was, for the time, one of the most modern buildings in the state of Maine.

Leasure continued to work on municipal projects for South Portland including the swimming pool portion of the South Portland Community Center on Nelson Road and the recently demolished Cash Corner fire station in addition to several building on the Southern Maine Community College Campus.

In 1970 he designed Saint Bartholomew Catholic Church in Cape Elizabeth to be a modern, “functional” building that could be used as a church, hall and meeting and social space. In Westbrook he designed the Public Safety Building and the Warren municipal pool. 

In Portland, Leasure’s work includes the tallest building currently in the State of Maine, the Franklin Towers, standing 16 stories, 175 feet tall. He also designed the Cumberland County Jail and the Bramhall Fire Station.

Outside of greater Portland Leasure’s work includes the Diplomat Condominiums in Old Orchard Beach, the chapel at the veteran’s cemetery in Augusta and the hotels at the Sunday River ski resort in Bethel.

But perhaps his most appreciated building is the house he designed as his family home in 1972. The building, incorporating a classic Mid-Century Modern into the rocky hillside terrain of Littlejohn Road in Cape Elizabeth, was recently restored by Laurel and Richard LaBauve of SoPo Cottage. The yearlong restoration was recently featured in Maine Homes Magazine by Down East.

“Big boxes full of people,” Leasure has called many of his commercial projects. But they remain some of the most recognizable buildings all over the state and reflect the classic designs of Mid-Century Modern buildings.

Sources: Portland Press Herald, August 15, 2012

The Early History of Preservation

By Julie Larry

Every year in May, local preservation groups, state historical societies, and business and civic organizations across the country celebrate Preservation Month through events that promote historic places and heritage tourism, and that demonstrate the social and economic benefits of historic preservation. Preservation Month began as National Preservation Week in 1973. In 2005, the National Trust for Historic Preservation extended the celebration to the entire month of May and declared it Preservation Month to provide an even greater opportunity to celebrate the diverse and unique heritage of our country’s cities and states. Please join us as all month long as we look at the past, present and future of historic preservation in Greater Portland.

Greater Portland Landmarks started in the mid-1960s following the demolition of Portland’s Union Station. Our early work sought to save buildings being demolished by urban renewal. But the roots of the modern preservation movement nationally and in Maine are even older, beginning in the early 19th century. Take a look below at some of the key moments in the early history of historic preservation.

TimelineJS Embed

Timeline compiled by Julie Ann Larry, Director of Advocacy

Architect of the Week: Charles Quincy Clapp

By Alessa Wylie

Charles Quincy Clapp might just be one of Portland’s most famous 19th century architects that you’ve probably never heard of.  He was described as “A man who took much interest in architecture and had a correct taste” and who happened to build some of Portland’s most interesting buildings.

Charles Quincy Clapp was born in Portland in May of 1799, the elder son of a prosperous Revolutionary War veteran and merchant, Asa Clapp and Elizabeth Wendell Quincy Clapp. Asa made his fortune as a shipowner, while also investing in banking and in real estate. Elizabeth was from the wealthy Quincy family of Boston. When Asa he died in 1848 he left an estate worth over $130,000.

Charles Quincy, or CQ, grew up in privilege however, not a lot is known about his early life or schooling although he probably attended Portland Academy. It is also not known where he developed his interest in architecture, but it is likely he learned it via builder’s guides and plan books. He must have had quite the collection since, in later years he donated copies of his books to the Maine Charitable Mechanics Association.

Octavia Clapp

In the early 1820s, CQ married Julia Octavia Wingate, the granddaughter of General Henry Dearborn who served on Washington’s staff during the American Revolution. As a wedding present CQ’s father Asa gave the couple the former Hugh McLellan House at Spring and High Streets, today part of the Portland Museum of Art. In 1817 Asa had purchased the property for just $4,050 after McLellan, owner of Maine’s largest shipping fleet and founder of Maine’s first bank and insurance company, had his fortune wiped out by the Embargo Act of 1807 and then the War of 1812. McLellan had built the house in 1800 at a cost of $20,000 so Asa got quite the bargain.

Shortly after moving in CQ set about “modernizing” the Federal style McClellan House by lengthening the windows on the first floor and adding some Greek Revival touches on the interior. Was this the first small step in his career as a “gentleman architect?”

The first building attributed to CQ is the flatiron Hay Building at the corner of Congress and Free Streets. Constructed in 1826, it made good use of a narrow triangle of property and featured a row of handsome arched windows on its Congress Street facade. Originally two stories in height, the third story was added on by John Calvin Stevens in 1922.

Hay Building

Next, CQ began his interest in hotels. The Portland Exchange Coffee House was built in 1828 at the corner of Fore and Market Streets. It was described as a brick structure four stories high on Fore Street but only three stories at the Market Street entrance. It had shops on the first floor, including bar and a hotel in the upper floors. When it opened on January 1, 1829 the Eastern Argus newspaper reported that “not a murmur of dissatisfaction” was heard about the structure. The building, along with several others owned by the Clapp family, was lost in the Great Fire of 1866.

Just as CQ was finishing his work on the Coffee House, he began to plan a house for his family. He sold the McLellan House to his father-in-law and built his house right next door. It was not like any residence which Portland had seen before with its temple-like facade that was designed in the Greek Revival style that was popular in the United States at the time. A comparison of the McLellan House and this house shows the changes in architecture that had happened over a 30-year period.

The house was well-received by Portland residents and visitors alike. Thirteen-year-old Samuel Longfellow, younger brother of Henry Wadsworth wrote in his diary on January 2, 1833, that he “went to Mr. Clapp’s house on Spring Street. It is a very handsome house inside. The doors are of mahogany with glass handles, and three of the fireplaces are of handsome marble.” Later that year The Portland Advertiser published the remarks of an anonymous writer who commented that the house “presents a beautiful appearance. If situated at the termination of a wooded avenue, and surrounded by ornamental trees, it would be equal in point of beauty, to any mansion I know of in New England.”  CQ & Julia lived in their new house only a few years. In 1837 they returned to the larger McLellan House next door to live with Julia’s widowed mother. They did not move again.

An interesting side note about the Clapp House: the house was owned by Augustus E. Stevens who was Portland’s mayor during the Great Fire of 1866. Over 1,500 buildings were destroyed in the fire, including City Hall and in the aftermath of the fire bank and city records were stored in the house. It is also likely that city business was conducted in the house. It is now owned by the Portland Museum of Art.

While CQ was building his own house, he was commissioned to redesign Portland’s seven-year-old Market Square/City Hall. Portland had just become Maine’s first city and it was felt that the late Federal style building needed an update so CQ offered his services. He had the cupola removed and made other changes to give it a more “modern” Greek Revival style appearance. Viewers agreed that the new facade was most elegant, but the city council found Clapp had spent much more than was expected and they debated long and bitterly before voting to pay the bills. The cupola that was removed ended up on one of the original buildings of the Westbrook Seminary which is now the University of New England and is still there today.

Market Square/City Hall before….

…and after Clapp’s redesign.

In 1836 CQ and Asa Clapp were among the incorporators of the Cumberland House, "a hotel—not a tavern” to be created by integrating several older buildings at Congress and Federal Streets to make a respectable and attractive establishment. It stood five stories tall and had 18 parlors and 57 bedrooms. Accommodations for men were offered in the Eastern Wing while the "tastefully prepared" rooms of the West Wing were reserved for women and families. It was considered to be a truly "magnificent hotel."

In 1900, the United States Hotel closed its doors and the wholesale/retail sporting goods dealer Edwards and Walker Company moved in. The building stood, with various modifications, until 1965.

Clapp’s Salem and Brackett Street duplex

In his role as a real estate developer, CQ found a way to help both his personal fortune and the City of Portland to grow. In the commercial districts he built stores and hotels while in residential areas he built houses. In 1831, speaking to the Maine Charitable Mechanic Association, CQ insisted “that though every mechanic could not have a splendid mansion, he might at least have a neat one.” After building his own “mansion” on Spring Street he adapted his ideas to smaller residences, giving each character without the cost of splendor. Examples of these include a small wooden duplex built at the corner of Salem and Brackett Streets in 1836, a block of three row houses erected on Park Street in 1846, and a large brick duplex at 126 Danforth Street.

Clapp’s “mustache” houses

More sutied to “mechanics” was Park Place, a series of ten smaller row homes built in 1848 with their own court opening off Park Street nearer the harbor affectionately call the Mustache Houses because of the wonderful decorative iron pieces above the windows. The buildings were advertised as seven-room units to be heated by stoves, not fireplaces, though they had decorative mantels.

However, not everything that CQ built at this time was scaled down. On Park Street, adjacent to the Victoria Mansion was the home of CQ’s daughter Julia and her husband John Carroll. CQ gave Julia the property in 1851 and is assumed to have designed the brick house, which, in keeping with changing styles, was Italianate in its external details though the interior reflected a transitional period with Greek Revival woodwork next to Italianate styled marble mantels in the parlor.

Around this time CQ also took part in a more ambitious enterprise. In 1850 CQ and eight others undertook to develop part of Back Cove, proposing to construct a bridge with a dam and locks at the entrance, to excavate a basin and to fit it with wharves. Although the plan was not completed, about eleven acres of Back Cove did get filled in, producing both residential and commercial land popularly referred to as Clapp’s Dump.

Middle Street after the Great Fire

The Great Fire of 1866 totally changed Portland overnight. On July 4, 1866, a fire started down on the waterfront and quickly spread through Portland destroying over 1, 500 buildings and leaving over 10,000 people homeless. CQ lost fourteen buildings and while no longer young or in good health, he went to work to replace most of them. By October 13th, he had eleven brick buildings under construction, with five already roofed in and the other six built at least up to their second stories.

CQ’s post fire buildings were constructed in the Italianate style, although two buildings, 373 Fore Street (Bull Feeney’s) and 103-107 Exchange Street, have second-story Gothic windows. And, CQ wasn’t just rebuilding for himself. On Market Street he built two structures, one for him and one next door for his son-in-law John Carroll. On Middle Street he built a building for his brother A.W. Clapp.

373 Fore Street (now Bull Feeney’s)

When Charles Quincy Clapp died in 1868, he had been associated with more than 600 recorded property transactions. Portland newspapers praised his contributions to the city, noting that “Possessing an unusual taste for architecture, in which he was excelled by few, every building erected under his auspices was designed and modelled by himself…” The papers went on to claim that “he has erected, probably a greater number of buildings on his own account than any other person.”  His obituary further stated that “Though possessing a large estate he was unostentatious in his bearing; though his charities were never paraded in the press he always remembered the poor and the humblest of our population often in him found a warm and generous friend.”

NOTE: The primary source of biographical information for this article is from Joyce Bibber’s bio of Charles Quincy available at the Maine Historic Preservation’s website. The source for many of the photos is the Maine Historical Society and the Maine Memory Network.

Building Munjoy Hill: The Houses of William Hoit

By Kate Burch

William Hoit (1799-1888) was a prolific builder on Munjoy Hill in the first half of the 19th century. He is responsible for building at least a dozen homes between 1845-1852, mostly in the Greek Revival Style that was prevalent at the time. Many of his homes are located on the southwestern slope of the hill, overlooking the former Portland Company complex and the former Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad yard.  

Hoit was a minor stockholder in the railroad company. He purchased a number of lots 1845-1847 from Eliphalet Clark, a partner with Moses Gould in the subdivision and development of Munjoy Hill in the mid 19th century. At least three, possibly five, dwellings on Monument Street are known to have been built by Hoit. He also built dwellings on Atlantic Street, St. Lawrence Street and Congress Street. His eldest sons, including William H. Hoit, were also carpenters and joiners. William Sr. moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota sometime before 1857 with his wife and six youngest children, James, Thomas, Ann, Johanna, and Emily. He continued to work as a builder in Minneapolis along with sons James and Thomas.  

44 Monument Street 
Josiah W. Smith House (1845) 

Josiah W Smith bought the land at 44 Monument St from William Hoit in 1846, ‘together with the dwelling house and outhouses standing thereon.’ Smith sold the 2 ½ story wood framed Greek Revival dwelling house in 1850. Smith was a stone cutter. It believed he is the Josiah W Smith (1819-1857) buried in Evergreen Cemetery. He died young of consumption, a common ailment for his profession.  

48 Monument Street
Godfrey Mark House (1845) 

Godfrey Mark (1807-1878) was an immigrant from Switzerland. He arrived in Portland in 1828 at age 20 with his parents and siblings on the Globe. Godfrey and his father Gabriel worked as a cutler in their knife repair business G&G Mark’s on Exchange Street, later on Pearl Street.  He bought the 2 ½ story Greek Revival dwelling on Monument Street from William Hoit in 1845 and sold it in 1867. 

52 Monument Street
Wealthy Hallett House (c. 1850), probably built by William Hoit 

Wealthy D. Hallett purchased the property in 1852. Born in 1817, Wealthy D. Hallett married her first husband, Daniel at age 17, and then moved to Boston. She divorced Daniel in 1849. She remarried in 1855 to Cuban born Audrias Cederbloom, but retained her name as Mrs. W. D. Hallett. She sold the property to Benjamin Hallett in 1859 and his heirs sold it in 1864 to James Knowlton, a patternmaker and foreman in the pattern shop at the Portland Company. 

Other Munjoy Hill buildings attributed to William Hoit:

83 St. Lawrence Street, c1847 

87 St. Lawrence Street, c1852 

86 Congress Street, 1851 

104 Congress Street, 1845-1847 

17 Atlantic Street, c1845 

He is also believed to have built 23 Atlantic Street circa 1846, 26 Monument Street circa 1850, and may be the builder of 51 Monument Street. His son William H. Hoit is responsible for the move and reconstruction of an early cape at 62 Munjoy Street, circa 1857. 

We’re all staying at home, but our houses don’t always stay in one place!

By Kate Burch

A house being moved down Danforth Street in Portland by teams of oxen c1892. The photo was taken from 384 Danforth Street.

Structural relocation has a long history. One of the earliest references to moving a building is a London house that was relocated in 1598 due to a dispute between neighbors. In the 18th and 19th century buildings were moved using constructed wooden carriage systems and pulling buildings with teams of horses or oxen. It was not an easy process – primitive jacks and the uneven force of the animals made it difficult for buildings to stay level, and often caused chimneys to collapse.  

Moving a building across the bridge that crosses the Mousam River at Bridge Street in Springvale. Photographed in 1906.

Contemporary sources describe Americans as enthusiastic house relocators in the 19th century. In Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832) Frances Trollope writes, "One of the sights to stare at in America is that of a house being moved from place to place... .The largest house that I saw in motion was one containing two stories of four rooms each; forty oxen were yoked to it. The first few yards brought down the two stacks of chimneys, but afterwards all went well.”’ 

Moving Fred Hall's house down Pine Point beach in Scarborough. The August 3, 1924 Portland Sunday Telegram ran the picture with the following caption: “Fred W. Hall has solved the disagreeable problem of moving. Instead of packing up his furniture, piling it into a truck, and unpiling it at the end of the trip, Mr. Hall moves the house and all, thereby relieving Mrs. Hall of the onerous duty of 'settling.'" The house was moved a mile and a half at a pace of about 600 to 700 feet a day. The crew of men continuously moved greased skids onto tracks laid ahead of the house.

Mid-19th century improvements in technology made structural relocation less difficult. The invention of the hydraulic jack, replacing wooden screw jacks, allowed houses to be lifted more easily and evenly. Locomotives and boats were also employed to move houses, preventing damage through a steadier pull – although as you can see from photos, many local projects in Maine still employed animals well into the 20th century. 

In 1905, the Benjamin Green House in Brunswick was moved from its original location at the corner of Maine and Cumberland Streets to 259 Maine Street. The photograph shows a train blocking the house from moving over the train tracks on Maine Street. The railroad company was afraid the house would damage its tracks. After hours of negotiation, the train finally moved and the house could continue on its journey.

A large colonial mansion, known as "Spite House," was loaded on a railroad lighter at Phippsburg Center to be transported 85 miles to Rockport on July 26, 1925. The 119-year-old mansion had been sold to Donald D. Dodge of Philadelphia, who wanted it located in the summer colony of Rockport. It took three hours to load it onto the lighter (a flat-bottomed boat usually used in inland waterways) and then was delivered the same day.

The Gothic House

Greater Portland Landmarks is responsible for one of Portland’s well-known house moves. As part of a larger urban renewal plan for downtown Portland, in 1967 plans were developed to widen the section of Spring Street east of High Street to create an arterial in the middle of the city. That plan required the removal of many buildings on both sides of the planned roadway, including the 1845 John J. Brown House – also known as the Gothic House – at the site of the current Holiday Inn.  

Portland’s urban renewal movement was the driving force behind the creation of Greater Portland Landmarks in 1964, and Landmarks’ campaign for the Spring Street Historic District stopped the Spring Street Arterial project from progressing west of High Street.  

The developers of the Holiday Inn gave the Gothic House to Landmarks, and Landmarks arranged for the building to be moved from 87 Spring Street to its current location at 387 Spring Street in the West End. Because of the width of the streets, the house was moved down to Commercial Street and back up Danforth Street to Spring Street. The house was then sold for the cost of the move to Mrs. Austin Lamont. 

The John J. Brown House in its current location of 387 Spring Street.

Photos from the Maine Historical Society, via Maine Memory Network

Landmarks Recommends: Alessa Wylie's Favorite Books

Looking for something new to read? We’ll be sharing some staff favorites on the blog over the next few weeks. Sadly the library is currently closed, but titles are available from online retailers - and you can order online and have titles shipped from many of our local bookstores. Enjoy, stay safe, and #stayhome!

Alessa Wylie, local history expert and Education Manager at Landmarks, shared a list of some of her favorite books, including history and nonfiction as well as some fun fiction titles.

Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichel: A funny, poignant memoir of Ruth Reichel’s early life. Stories of her Mom’s cooking made me laugh-out-loud. There are some great recipes interspersed in the chapters too.

Mr. and Mrs. Prince by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina: This book is part genealogical detective story and part history of a remarkable 18th century African American couple from New England, Abijah and Lucy Prince. It is one of my favorites because it aptly portrays the trials and tribulations that are encountered when you are doing historical and genealogical research : the tedium of the search and then the thrill of finding the tidbit of information that you were searching for. I had to keep reading to see what other information the author and her husband could uncover about this amazing couple.

The Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard: This book is one of my all-time favorites. It’s the story of the shooting of President James Garfield and the shockingly outdated treatment he received from a team of physicians who tried for months to find and remove the bullet. The phrase “ignorance is bliss” is said to have come about because of Dr. Willard Bliss, one of the physicians. This book does what I think a great book should do, it peaked my interest to read about related subjects. Because of this book I’ve read books on Dr. James Lister, the British surgeon who pioneered the use of antiseptics, and President Chester Arthur, who succeeded Garfield.

Leadership in Turbulent Times and The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, both by Doris Kearns Goodwin: I would read and have read almost everything written by Doris Kearns Goodwin. She is a fantastic writer and her books are like the best fiction – they pull you in to the story and you don’t want to put the book down. Both books focus on past presidents. Leadership in Turbulent Times is a fascinating look at four presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson and the crises that each of them faced. I really liked it because I learned so much about each of the men, especially LBJ who I really didn’t know that much about. Don’t be alarmed by the size of The Bully Pulpit. Like most Doris Kearns Goodwin’s books, is not a quick read but it is a fascinating one. It essentially combines the stories of the friendship of Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, their presidencies and the evolution of the press during the early 20th century. I have a totally different view of William Howard Taft after reading this book.

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War and Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide, both by Tony Horwitz: I love the writings of the late, great Tony Horwitz. His books combine travel log, history, and social commentary, and are endlessly fascinating. These are two of my favorites. Confederates in the Attic was the first of Tony’s books that I read, and I loved the way he combined Civil War reenactors, Civil War battles, and a look at present day (2010) civil rights in the South. His last book, Spying on the South, retraced the steps of Fredrick Law Olmsted’s early career as an undercover correspondent in the 1850’s South for the fledgling New York Times. I was listening to Tony Horwitz’s audio recording of this book when he died unexpectedly last May and I felt like a lost a friend.

Dog On It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery – Book 1 by Spencer Quinn: As a fan of mysteries and a dog lover, this series is one of my favorites. The narrator of the stories is Chet, a large, mixed-breed dog that, having flunked out of police school, helps his owner Bernie, a private investigator, solve mysteries. Now, I have to admit that I’ve never read a Chet and Bernie Mystery – I’ve listened to them all on audiobook and the narrator, Jim Frangione is fantastic. These books are laugh-out-loud funny and good stories too.

Louisiana Longshot by Jana DeLeon – Book 1 of the Miss Fortune Mystery Series: If you are looking for a serious, intense mystery, this is not for you but, if you are looking for something light and funny with a good story, dive in. The characters are off-the-wall, as our some of their situations, but the books are fast-paced, mindless fiction which is certainly what I’m looking for right now.

Hunting for Kit Homes in Greater Portland

Julie Ann Larry, Director of Advocacy, Greater Portland Landmarks

Explore the kit and catalog homes of the Oakdale neighborhood with our self-guided walking tour!

What is a Kit Home?

A kit house is a package of nearly all the materials (lumber, millwork, flooring, siding, roofing, gutters, piping, windows, hardware, lath, paints, etc.) you need to build a house (including the instructions!) that would be shipped to you from a mail-order company by train to your town. Home builders would then pick up the crates of materials at the local train station and assemble a home on their site. There were seven major kit manufacturing companies in the United States and a few smaller regional companies. Although records do not exist for all the companies, it is estimated that 500,000 to 750,000 kit homes were sold by the major manufacturers in the first half of the 20th century. The kit homes that we have been researching in Greater Portland were built generally 1908-1940, but kit homes were manufactured until the 1970s.

Kit home manufacturing lasted into the second half of the 20th century with manufacturers producing ranch homes influenced by the International Style’s ribbon windows and long low roofs. This example is The Delray from a 1960 Lewis Manufacturing Co. catalog, known as Liberty Ready-Cut Homes.

Pattern Books and Prefabricated Houses in the 19th Century

Kit home manufacturing and sales in the early 20th century grew out of a long history of sales and distribution of home plans and low-volume prefabricated housing materials. In the 18th and 19th centuries, books of plans were used by owners and builders to design and construct houses in the popular styles of the period. Asher Benjamin (1773-1845) of Connecticut and Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-1852) of New York were two well-known authors of pattern books . The Country Builder’s Assistant (1798) by Ashier Benjamin and Downing’s Cottage Residences (1842) and The Architecture of Country Houses (1850) provided examples of designs, advice, and how-to plans, elevations, and details for builders.

Maine’s lumber industry benefited from the state’s maritime trading routes and produced low volumes of prefabricated housing materials in the first half of the 19th century to ship to distant locales. In the 1840s and 1850s prefabricated building materials were shipped from Maine to the West Coast, where they wasn’t yet an active lumber industry. The Davis-Horton House in San Diego is an extant example of an early prefabricated house produced in Maine.

A detail from Asher Benjamin’s The Country Builder’s Assistant.

The Davis-Horton House (formerly known as the William Heath Davis House) built in 1850, is the oldest standing structure in Downtown San Diego. It serves as the home of the Gaslamp Quarter Historical Foundation and the Gaslamp Museum at the Davis-Horton House. Originally, the house was one of several saltbox-style structures shipped from Portland, Maine, to San Diego, which had little wood for construction.

In the years leading up to the Civil War, lumbermen D.N. Skillings and D.B. Flint formed the Skillings and Flint Company of Boston and began marketing prefabricated panel structures. Both Skillings and Flint were involved in the lumber business and used the prefabricated building business to enhance their lumber interests. Flint was a partner in Flint and Hall, who had among mills in New York, Michigan and Canada, lumber mills in Bangor, Machias, and Calais, Maine. Skillings and Flint’s catalog designs targeted plantations in the West Indies, railroad companies in the West, farmers, and the Union Army.

A portable hospital offered by Skillings & Flint.

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20th Century Kit Home Manufacturing

Perhaps the most well-known and researched 20th century kit home manufacturer is Sears, Roebuck & Co. Richard Sears, one of the founders, had been a lumber and coal dealer in Minnesota before founding the jewelry company that would grow to become Sears, Roebuck & Co. in Chicago. The mail-order company sold hardware, millwork, roofing materials, and paints and stains along with household and clothing items. Sears’ building materials department was nearly closed in 1906 from lackluster sales, but began to flourish when the company turned to packaging their building materials into home packages. With their new success, the company acquired lumber mills in Mansfield, Louisiana and Cairo, Illinois, as well as a millwork plant in Norwood, Ohio.  From 1908–1940, Sears, Roebuck and Co. sold about 70,000 - 75,000 homes through their mail-order Modern Homes program. In 1920 their Cairo plant alone was producing 250 houses a month.

Less well-known is the Gordon-Van Tine Company. Gordon-Van Tine was established in 1907 as a building materials distributor in Davenport, Iowa. It was an outgrowth of U.N. Roberts, a lumber mill and mail-order building supply company founded in 1866. Its location in Davenport, Iowa is strategically situated on the Mississippi River and a major railroad line. Lumber was supplied to the company’s mill via the river and then freight was distributed by rail to the East and West coasts. Sears contracted with Gordon-Van Tine for five years until purchasing their Norwood, Ohio millwork plant in 1912. In 1916 Gordon-Van Tine began offering their own line of Ready-Cut houses. Then in 1919 they contracted with Montgomery Ward to manufacture that company’s new line of kit homes.

Like their mail-order competitor Sears, Roebuck & Co., Montgomery Ward was located in Chicago and offered household goods and clothing delivered by mail. They also began selling building materials, lumber, hardware, and house plans before World War I. However they did not have the manufacturing infrastructure to design, cut, and package an entire house. So in 1919 they contracted their kit house manufacturing to Gordon-Van Tine and began selling the homes under the Wardway Homes name. As a result, many of their homes are identical to those offered by Gordon-Van Tine.

Other less well-known manufacturers were Harris Bros. Company of Chicago; Ray H. Bennett Lumber Co., of North Tonawanda, New York; Lewis Manufacturing of Bay City, Michigan; International Mill and Timber of Bay City, Michigan which sold homes under the name of Sterling Systems Homes; and Aladdin Company, also of Bay City, Michigan. Aladdin Company was one of the longest lived and most successful kit home companies. Founded by brothers William and Otto Sovereign in 1906, the company remained solvent and family-owned until it shut its doors for the last time in 1981.

Some kit manufacturers sold more than just houses - you could also by a garage, a barn, chicken coop, or even an outhouse! Montgomery Ward, Sears, and Gordon-Van Tine sold a variety of sheds, barns, and other agricultural outbuildings. As Montgomery Ward advertised, “Good cattle should have good housing too!”

Identifying Kit Homes

Many Kit homes can be identified by the presence of stamped lumber. Labeling systems were used by manufacturers to aid in the dwelling’s assembly. Different manufacturers used different labeling systems, and some manufacturers used multiple labels, making identification of a manufacturer challenging.

How can you identify a kit house? It can be challenging. Although a few manufacturers retained their sales records and made them available to the public, not all manufacturers maintained or retained records of their products’ distribution. Nearly all sales records from the major manufacturers, including Sears, Roebuck Co., have been lost, but Aladdin's sales records are available in an archive at Central Michigan University.

However, kit homes themselves may retain some references to their pre-fabricated past. Wood framing was variously stamped, marked, or labeled by each manufacturer.  The image to the right shows an example of the markings that maybe found in basements, attics, or walls of kit houses. In addition to framing marks, other materials may identify a kit house like Sears Roebuck Co.'s  Goodwall 4x4 sheetrock and plumbing fixtures marked "R or SR" on the underside or corner of fixtures. But some of these materials were also sold separately in catalogs and may not be a definitive way to identify a kit house.

This dwelling on Ludlow Street in Portland isn’t a kit home, but was likely built using standardized plans from companies like Standard Homes Co.

The dwelling to the left on Ludlow Street in Portland is remarkably similar to this dwelling offered by Standard Homes, a building plan company that sold plans to builders and owners for nearly 60 years.

A big challenge to identifying kit houses is the similarity between various kit houses and between kit houses and some houses built with catalog building plans. This Tudor inspired dwelling on Ludlow Street near Deering High School is likely an example of Standard Homes “Fulton”, an English Cottage design with three bedrooms. The Standard Homes Company was established in 1917 by A. Gales Johnson and produced building plans for builders and owners for nearly 60 years.

Although many company catalogs have been reprinted or are available online, because some companies used the same mill suppliers, identifying a kit house from the exterior can be challenging. Many designs and plans can look the same. Above are three similar homes by three manufacturers. They are distinguishable by minor exterior details like arched doorways or the chimney design.

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Kit Homes in Greater Portland

Using deed research, historic photos, and manufacturers catalogs Landmarks has identified nearly two dozen possible kit homes in Greater Portland. The Oakwood Heights neighborhood near USM, formerly part of the former Deering Estate, was subdivided in 1923 by Thomas Sanders, a local developer who lived in Fessenden Park between Deering and Brighton Avenues. Sanders was also responsible for the development of Bedford Park, between Bedford Street and I-295. While Sanders sold off lots, he also built several homes on speculation. Between March of 1923 and mid-1924, when the City of Portland documented the neighborhood, then still under construction, as part of their tax assessment work, about two dozen homes were already built within the development. Our research identified several houses in Oakwood Heights that might possibly be kit houses and we undertook some additional research on several of the properties to identify which manufacturers and models might be present in the neighborhood. It appears that Sanders utilized both building plans and kit houses from several manufacturers to quickly build out his neighborhood.

When this dwelling on Woodmont Street in Portland went on the market several years ago it had a remarkably intact kitchen with a built-in eating nook and original kitchen cabinetry.

This Oakwood Heights house at 14 Kenwood Street appears from the exterior to be an example of a Sears "Glen Falls" model house. Slightly altered with an infilled porch, the house was first occupied by Ralph Mahoney, an orthopedic doctor and his family. In the 1930 US Federal Census, the Mahoney house was valued at $13,000.

Beyond Oakwood Heights we have identified kit houses in South Portland, Falmouth, Brunswick, and other Portland neighborhoods. Using information on representatives that signed Sears’ mortgages we verified this Sears “Maplewood” model house on Bradley Street in Portland. The house was built in 1932 at a cost of $6,500 for Charles and Gladys Flight. Charles was an accountant at Great Atlantic & Pacific (A&P) Tea Co. The couple left Portland in 1950 and moved to Japan. It appears to be a mirror image of the model house.

A Sears kit home on Bradley Street in Portland.

The Maplewood model by Sears.

It is likely that there are other kit homes in southern Maine. We know that there are two purported Sears kit homes on Route 302 in Bridgton, a Sears house in Saco, and there are likely more kit homes that have not yet been surveyed and identified in subdivisions from the 20s, 30s, and 40s in our communities. Greater Portland Landmarks hopes to identify additional homes as we continue to survey buildings in suburban Deering and neighborhoods in surrounding communities, and we hope that homeowners will come forward to help us identify other potential kit homes!

Landmarks Recommends: Julie Larry's Favorite Books

Looking for something new to read? We’ll be sharing some staff favorites on the blog over the next few weeks. Sadly the library is currently closed, but titles are available from online retailers - and you can order online and have titles shipped from many of our local bookstores. Enjoy, stay safe, and #stayhome!

Julie Larry, architect, architectural history guru, and Director of Advocacy at Landmarks, shared a list of her favorite books related to historic preservation - and others just for fun!

Field Guide to American Houses by Virginia McAlester: This is my bible, my older copy is held together by duct tape. This new edition delves deeper into post World Ward II architecture.

Thomas C. Hubka is best know for his book Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn . In Houses Without Names, Hubka examines more contemporary vernacular architecture for patterns and trends that tell the story of modern living. 

Want to learn more about kit and catalog homes from the early 20th century?  117 House Designs of the Twenties and Best Homes of the 1920s are two great sources.

Turn of the Century House Designs & Beautiful Bungalows: My favorite period of architecture extends from the late 1880s into the first decades of the 20th century and I love a good floor plan. 

The Irish of Portland Maine: by Matthew Jude Barker. Much of my research over the last ten years has been centered around the impact of immigration on Portland's neighborhoods. Portland's Irish community has had a large role in shaping today's city, including many of its iconic landmark buildings. 

Places of the Soul: by Christopher Day is one of the books that propelled me towards a career in historic preservation.  As a designer it's important to pay attention to the qualities of spaces to which we are naturally attracted, and when we build new, to incorporate those qualities in order to create buildings that we will want to preserve in the future. 

Like photography? Some histories can be dry, but these two books illuminate history with beautiful photographs”  A Day's Work: A Sampler of Historic Maine Photographs 1860-1920 and City by the Sea: A Photographic History of Portland, Maine.

Essential Louisiana Cookbook: Because when I'm sheltering-in-place I cook comfort food, and when I cook comfort food I want something from New Orleans, my second home. 

Any of Bruce Robert Coffin's books featuring Portland's Detective Byron. I love to read mysteries set in Maine, and this series is set in and around Portland featuring many familiar places. The former Rufus Deering lumberyard, currently under redevelopment, features prominently in the latest Detective Byron novel Within Plain Sight. 

Artists: Preservers of Place—and Portland

Stephen Etnier, Union Station
oil on canvas, 1941, 28 by 36 inches
Photo Jay York, courtesy Barridoff Galleries

Guest post by Carl Little

When my brother David and I embarked on Paintings of Portland, our third book collaboration, we went looking for images that represented the city in all its geographic and architectural diversity. We wanted to tell a story of the city’s evolution from multiple perspectives, with images that would present a vibrant changing city.   

An especially resonant image is Stephen Etnier’s painting of Union Station (above). The dark palette serves as a kind of somber foreshadowing of this famous structure’s ill-fated end, its demolition in 1961. As historian Joseph Conforti notes in Creating Portland, “Images of Union Station have served as more than a memorial to past grandeur; they have been a summons to safeguard the architectural heritage that distinguishes Portland as a place.” The loss of that mighty and handsome train station led to the creation of Greater Portland Landmarks. 

Robert Solotaire, Passage
oil on paper, 1990, 13 by 29 inches
Photo Jay York, courtesy Barridoff Galleries

Passage, the title of Robert Solotaire’s painting of the Franklin Street Arterial, probably refers to this prominent roadway. Yet it also brings to mind the urban renewal that erased a Bayside neighborhood in order to insert this corridor—an event immortalized in Peter Kilgore’s poem “Portland Renewal Authority” recently reprinted in his collected poems. 

Sam Cady, Tower Spire, Munjoy Hill
oil on cut-out canvas mounted on wood, 2008, 18 by 12 inches
Courtesy Greenhut Galleries

Other landmarks survive and continue to be historic touchstones. We included several images of the Portland Observatory, among them a shaped canvas rendering by Friendship-based painter Sam Cady, who was inspired by a photograph of the building taken by Bruce Brown, long-time Portland resident and a pillar of Maine’s contemporary art scene.  

Equally engaging is Alison Rector’s The Original Portland Public Library, in which sunlight casts a dramatic shadow across the Romanesque Revival structure designed by Francis H. Fassett. Philanthropist James Phinney Baxter built the library as a gift to the city in 1882. Today some of its interior has been re-imagined by the VIA advertising agency. 

Alison Rector, The Original Portland Public Library
oil on linen, 2016, 10 by 14 inches
Photo Jay York, private collection

We could have included a whole section of images of the Custom House on Fore Street but settled on Marsha Donahue’s light-filled watercolor of the blended Second Empire/Renaissance Revival-style building, constructed in 1867-1872. Likewise, if room had allowed, we would have featured more than one of C. Michael Lewis’s stunning architectural details painted as part of a scavenger hunt for Greater Portland Landmarks in 1993. The visage of Justice, looking down over the entrance to the Cumberland County Courthouse on Federal Street, had to suffice to represent this fun project.  

Marsha Donahue, US Custom House, Portland, Maine
watercolor, 2010, 28 by 22 inches
Collection Karen Sulzberger and Eric Lax

C. Michael Lewis, Justice
acrylic on board, 1993, 16 by 24 inches
Collection Ted and Lucinda Hart

Joel Babb, Monument Square, Portland, Maine
oil on linen, 2014, 28½ by 32 inches
Private collection, courtesy Greenhut Galleries

A number of artists have painted the city from an elevated prospect. Joel Babb took photographs of Monument Square from the offices of the Pierce Atwood law firm in developing his extraordinary bird’s-eye view of the heart of the city, that gathering place for protests, festivals, and the Wednesday farmer’s market. In the painting we look over the shoulder, as it were, of Our Lady of Victories, Portland’s Soldiers and Sailors Monument commissioned by the city in 1872 to memorialize the residents of the city who died in the Civil War. The bronze statue was created by Franklin Simmons (1839-1913), who also designed the statue of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at the other end of Congress Street.  

Alice Spencer, Portland Zoning Map #2
acrylic on paper on board, 2006, 8 by 10 inches
Courtesy Greenhut Galleries

Perhaps no image in the book reflects the changing city better than Alice Spencer’s Portland Zoning Map #2. The artist was prompted to paint her zoning map series by visits to the Planning Office at City Hall when she served on the Portland Public Art Committee. Spencer is the founder of TEMPOart, a public art nonprofit that brings temporary site-specific art installations to Portland neighborhoods and urban sites.  

“As you look through this book,” David and I wrote in the foreword to Paintings of Portland, “consider the changing visual dynamics of Maine’s largest city, its growth and development.” We also encouraged our audience to “reflect on the ways in which Portland has been, and continues to be, a tried and true source of inspiration for artists of all aesthetic stripes.” In the act of painting, artists are preservers of place.   

Carl Little is the author of numerous books on Maine art and artists. He and his brother David Little have collaborated on three books: Art of Katahdin, Art of Acadia and Paintings of Portland. 

Discover the story of your historic home

If you’re stuck at home social distancing and looking for something to do, why not research the history of your house? Many of the documents you need are accessible online, and when you’re done you can even apply for a Historic Property Marker from Landmarks!

Start with the house itself. Gather what you know about the house – how old is it? Did previous owners leave you any information? Was it significantly altered? What style is your house? You can use our style guide or one of many other online resources to help identify domestic architecture style, like this one.

Many buildings were built based on plans in architectural publications or catalogues in the 19th and early 20th century. In the 19th century, building books by Asher Benjamin and Andrew Jackson Downing were very popular, and many of their titles are freely available to browse on Google Books or Archive.org.  The most well-known of the 20th century catalogues are those advertising the Craftsman kit homes sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. For more information on these kit homes click here.

You can start tracing the history of your home’s owners using a deed search. Most counties in Maine allow you to search for deeds online – here’s the online search for the Cumberland County Registry of Deeds.

Digitized deed from the Cumberland County Registry

Start with your deed and trace the ownership history by noting the seller’s name and the legal description of the property. Each deed will usually reference an earlier deed, allowing you to trace the ownership history back in time. Write down the Book and Page of the deed from when the seller purchased the property. Next search for the seller’s deed of purchase and note whom they bought it from, working your way back to the first deed that lists the purchase of land AND buildings, then you've probably found the original owner! 

Some towns publish an ownership history in their assessor database, including owner name and the Book and Page of the deed in the Registry of Deeds (you can find your town’s assessor database on your town's website, or by googling). This information can help you find earlier deeds.

A page from the 1850 US Census

Next, learn more about your home’s previous occupants. You can search for previous owners in US Census records, vital records, and local directories to learn more about their families and occupations. Because Census and City Directory records include addresses, you can confirm it’s the correct person and learn what they did while they lived in your house. You can also access marriage and death records, which can sometimes give you a deeper understanding of the occupants of your house. Did they buy the house the year they were married? Did they purchase it from the descendants of the previous owner after he died? 

Ancestry.com is a great way to search these records if you have access. FamilySearch.org provides free access to all Census records and some other local records if you make a free account. FindAGrave.com is another resource for learning about your home’s occupants. Although less extensive than others, this free database has vital information about the people whose graves have been recorded, and in some cases includes photographs and short biographies.

If your building is substantial in size and style, it might have been designed by an architect. If you are fortunate enough to learn the name of the architect that designed your building, there are several biographical sites with information on prominent local architects:

• Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Maine

• AIA Historical Directory of American Architects

1924 Tax Record photo of 270 Brackett Street

You can also discover more about your house through images and maps. If you live in Portland, search for your address on Maine Memory Network to see what it looked like when it was photographed for the 1924 tax records, a good way to track how your home has changed over the years. Residents of other towns can check to see if your local library or historical society has photographs available online.

Searching for your house on a map can show how your neighborhood developed, if the footprint of your building changed, and sometimes can even show you past uses of your building. Maps available online include:

Cumberland Center in the 1857 Map of Cumberland County

• 1857 Map of Cumberland County

• 1871 Map of Cumberland County 

• Bird’s Eye View of Portland, 1876

• Goodwin Atlas of the City of Portland, 1882

• Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, 1886 and 1896

• Richards Atlas of Portland & South Portland, 1914

Once you know more about your home’s occupants and how your home has changed over time, you can start to situate the story of your house into a larger historical context. Learning about the development of your town or neighborhood can help you situate the context in which your house was built. Was it one of the first homes in the area? Or was it part of a development boom? Consult local history books about your neighborhood or town, like Portland or Deering. Many towns also have local history resources available online, including South Portland, Cumberland, Falmouth, and Portland - try checking the website of your local library or historical society. The Digital Maine repository contains a multitude of local history records.

Thinking about the wider history of the state and the country – statehood, war, economic booms, and recessions - can also help you tell the story of your home.  What has your home seen?

As you research your house, compile the information you find in a document or a notebook so you can share it with future owners! And if you complete the research in this blog post, you’ll have all you need to get a Historic Marker from Landmarks to display.