Photo by Gary Pennington
Photo by Gary Pennington
If I Lived Here
From its lazy porches to its rocky cliffs leading to the Atlantic Ocean, this Cape Elizabeth property, like summertime, is made to enjoy.
From the minute the tree-lined driveway opens up onto this Cape Elizabeth house, with the ocean and the horizon misted in late morning rain beyond, I am home. Not a home I have ever known. Definitely not. I have never lived on the ocean, had a swimming pool overlooking granite cliffs, nor a circular driveway with a cobblestone center around which I can comfortably maneuver my car up to the front door.
It is not any of the homes I have ever lived in, but its exterior immediately speaks of a place that carries elements of all my homes: the weathered cedar shingles from one; the slender white posts supporting the wraparound porch’s low roof from another; the lacecap hydrangeas wending their way up over the garage’s doorway.
Although we had no garage and no lush hydrangeas, it still reminds me of 23 Mather, and how every summer my mother tended the rhododendrons and azaleas in our stony, stiff soil until the bushes finally, after many years, began to create buckets of blossoms of pink and rose and white. Although I see no azaleas, banks of rhododendrons and peonies and roses stand thick with bloom, and their personal foliages.
The rain has stopped, and summer shifts in the moist heat as I mount the three steps up to the open porch with its white painted railings. For me, this kind of day in summer has always insisted that life is intended to be pleasurable.
I have been told that this is a classic John Calvin Stevens shingle-style cottage, built in 1910. It looks a classic with its original bead-board paneling, and the rich dark wood on the living room walls, the floors, even the furnishings. It was totally renovated in 1992 by someone who recognized the value of great designs, original goods, and held on to the angles and materials, the lovely, enclosed back stairway that runs up from the kitchen. Stevens also designed Winslow Homer’s home in Prout’s Neck and hundreds of others. He even owned Homer’s Afternoon Fog for a while.
As I pass through the living room—maybe in its day it was the “parlor” or some such formal entertaining space—I run my fingers over the keys of the grand piano I cannot play. I have a friend who plays the piano—that is an understatement—he could play here, the sun sweet on his neck, his back straight, fingers flying. I am thinking what a perfect rainy day home this is when sunlight streaks in through the open windows, soaking up the droplets of rain clinging to the screens.
It is summer, and so what can I do but open the door and go outside now that the rain has stopped and the sky has bloomed over the ocean, the waves playing their own particular rhythms against the craggy boulders. I head down the mown path, between the wild rosebushes with their plump rosehips, and then on out to the point with the wrought iron bench, to sit and watch the world unfold.
Features of this home:
The World Beyond—1.6 acres with the Atlantic Ocean as the backyard.
More Water—an inground, cliff-side pool from which to view the ocean.
History on Home Turf—a 3,212-square-foot Maine coastal “cottage” designed by John Calvin Stevens with many originals.
Places to Be—12 rooms, 5 bedrooms, 3 full baths, 2 half-baths, gourmet kitchen.
Plus—brick fireplace, patio, 2-car attached garage, porch, second-floor deck, and a 10-minute drive to many cultural amenities as well as Portland’s international airport.
Maine Ahead has no stake in the sale of this house, and it may be sold by the time this appears in print. It is listed at $3.2 million by Legacy Properties, Sotheby International Realty. To learn more, contact listing agents Diane Shevenell (207-770-2224) or Preston Robison (207-770-2236), or email dshevenell@legacysir.com or probison@legacysir.com.
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